Saturday, October 18
Lynchburg, VA
8:30 AM
Liberty University Club Sports
vs
Pre-Season Conference Tournament
Men’s volleyball debuts with DI team placing second, DII first in respective fields
10/20/2025 1:14:00 PM | Men's Volleyball
Liberty fared well in its home preseason tournament before traveling to North Carolina State for an ECVA South showcase this weekend.
Saturday's Preseason ECVA South Tournament at the LaHaye Multipurpose Center proved both of Liberty University's men's volleyball teams have plenty of potential, with the Division I team falling in a three-game final against the University of Virginia and the DII squad defeating North Carolina State in three games in its championship match.
"It was a great time to have everybody out playing and to see some great competition in a full 10-hour day of play," Liberty Head Coach Josh Knapp said. "It was a really great performance across the board from those athletes, especially for our first event and our first time seeing competition outside of intra-squad scrimmages."
In pool play, Liberty's DI team lost to UVA 25-21, 25-23 and the Flames' alumni team, 25-21, 20-25, 26-24 before sweeping George Mason, 25-16, 25-16, and North Carolina State, 25-18, 25-18. In the playoffs, the Flames won a rematch with the Liberty alumni team in the semifinals, 25-15, 23-25, 15-12, before falling to UVA in the final, 20-25, 25-21, 15-11.
"The alumni team has some great size and great chemistry, and they love coming back to these events and playing, especially playing us," Knapp said. "They want to show that they're better than the current roster."
"We tried our hardest and just came up short," added former Flames outside hitter Sean Taggart, who hadn't played in two years but hadn't lost his hitting and blocking touch. "It's been a blast, a fun time."
Injuries took their toll on the Flames' current lineup in the end as sophomore middle blocker Austin Leach, senior opposite hitter Zach Lamoureux, and freshman outside hitter Jack Byers sat out much of the final match.
"They just saw a lot of repetition throughout the day, and their bodies broke down a little bit at the end," Knapp said. "We had multiple guys step up and see that starting role throughout the day, and it was great to see those guys be willing to be challenged and push through a new environment that they haven't been in before in competition yet this year."
The alumni team, which featured setter Tommy Speelman, middle blockers Gene De Jesus, Ben Dowd, and John Sauder, Taggart and fellow outside hitter Cross Edwards, libero Mason Ellenberger, right-side hitters Cooper Guillaume and Jake Alderfer, wasn't spared the injury bug. But as the No. 1 seed, the Flames overcame the pain to sweep their way to the semifinals, going 8-1 overall.
Edwards injured his calf muscle early in the first game of his first match and Speelman pulled a muscle in his back but played through it.
"We played pretty well," Taggart said. "It was fun to knock off some cobwebs and play. Tommy Speelman was our captain, our leader of the group, our setter. He helped set everything up."
"It was pretty rag-tag," Speelman said. "We just put it together last night. It was fun. We beat them earlier in the day and then we ran out of gas."
"I'm like old now, so it takes a long time to heal up," Edwards added. "We miss the game a lot, but you can tell our bodies are all broken right now. It's been a long couple years without playing."
In the championship match, the Flames' DI squad trailed UVA 6-1 early before rallying to win the first game. Senior outside hitter Zach Bell's block winner to lift them to a 20-19 lead before freshman Ian McKee added a stuff block and dink from the middle on game point.
Junior outside hitter Josh Davis was blocked by UVA's right-side hitter early in Game 2 before he spiked a kill from the left side to pull the Flames back within 6-5. Back-to-back kills by Bell and another by Davis off sets from senior setter Josh Culpepper kept Liberty within 12-10 before UVA started to pull away. A kill by Bell, service winner by Culpepper, kill by McKee, and block winners by Davis and Leach pulled the Flames back within 22-19, but the Cavaliers forced a third-game tiebreaker with a series of powerful kills down the stretch.
"UVA's got a good 6-2 offense going with two setters and a pretty good right-side hitter and a good outside hitter as well," said Culpepper, who kept the Cavaliers on the defensive with his powerful topspin jump serving. "I didn't miss too many serves. I was really trying to let them make the errors."
Kills by Bell, Davis, and Culpepper and blocks by Culpepper and Leach helped Liberty stay in the deciding game, trailing 12-10, but UVA put it away after a couple questionable calls against the Flames.
"This is a preseason tournament and even paid officials are not perfect," Knapp said. "They don't see everything. Every single day in practice, we make sure we play through those calls."
Liberty's Division II team was able to handle the adversity in its decisive third game against the Wolfpack. After Flames junior Guilherme Moura Queiroz's five-point service run turned a two-point deficit into a three-point lead, sophomore outside hitter Connor Cranage came up big, spiking the game-winner on match point after having a couple of calls go against him.
"I told the guys, 'Hey, we'll play through calls and honor what the refs give us,'" said Liberty third-year volunteer Assistant Coach Stephen Patag, who is a fourth-year medical student at the Liberty University College of Osteopathic Medicine. "We respect the refs, we play through the calls, and we side-out and get the point."
Liberty committed service errors on three consecutive match points, but with the DI roster supporting them on the sideline, the Flames didn't lose hope but instead found a way to win.
"The result of the team was fantastic, the way they picked each other up, even after mistakes," Patag said. "That was an MVP performance from Connor (Cranage), our outside hitter. I was proud of the guys, how they rallied through it. We lost the first set and the guys responded well and rebounded. We made a few errors on our serves, but I wanted them to be aggressive, and I really saw them respond well to our practice and our training."
Queiroz, from Brazil, provided floor leadership rotating from the front to back row with Cranage.
"The chemistry on and off the court is really good," Queiroz said. "We go out and know each other very well and we trust each other. Even when we lost the lead or were tied, just those high-pressure moments, we've got to maintain the energy and play together and communicate. Stephen Patag did an amazing job today. Every huddle, he was talking about picking up the guy next to you. This is only the start. We can only build up from here."
"I really wanted them to believe in themselves, and have that confidence to trust one another, and I saw the camaraderie of the team rally behind each other," Patag added. "That's what the sport is about, everyone having fun and playing well together while respecting the refs and the opponent, and they did a really good job of that today."
Liberty's alumni team showed that same spirit of competition and unity, even without having the opportunity to practice together prior to the tournament.
Five members of the alumni team, plus its honorary coach — former Flames Football tight end JT Wood ('22) from Jacksonville, Fla., who flies J-170 jets for Republic based out of Louisville, Ky.; and servicing Chicago, Detroit, and cities along the East Coast — are graduates of Liberty's School of Aeronautics, with a few of them flying in for the tournament.
Speelman, who lives in Virginia Beach, flies Beechcraft King Air planes for Dynamic, which does government contract work, spending two months in Saudi Arabia, a month in Mexico, and a month in the Philippines as well astraveling to California and Alaska.
Taggart, who trained with Wood as a flight instructor at Liberty, is a captain who flies a CRJ commercial planes for Endeavor while Edwards is a first officer based out of Philadelphia.
Meanwhile, Cody Reinsma, who played right-side hitter for the Flames, brought his Dover (Del.) Air Force Academy team to the tournament. While not training and playing with that team, Reinsma flies Lockheed C-5 Galaxy military transport aircraft for the U.S. Air Force.
By Ted Allen/Staff Writer
"It was a great time to have everybody out playing and to see some great competition in a full 10-hour day of play," Liberty Head Coach Josh Knapp said. "It was a really great performance across the board from those athletes, especially for our first event and our first time seeing competition outside of intra-squad scrimmages."
In pool play, Liberty's DI team lost to UVA 25-21, 25-23 and the Flames' alumni team, 25-21, 20-25, 26-24 before sweeping George Mason, 25-16, 25-16, and North Carolina State, 25-18, 25-18. In the playoffs, the Flames won a rematch with the Liberty alumni team in the semifinals, 25-15, 23-25, 15-12, before falling to UVA in the final, 20-25, 25-21, 15-11.
"The alumni team has some great size and great chemistry, and they love coming back to these events and playing, especially playing us," Knapp said. "They want to show that they're better than the current roster."
"We tried our hardest and just came up short," added former Flames outside hitter Sean Taggart, who hadn't played in two years but hadn't lost his hitting and blocking touch. "It's been a blast, a fun time."
Injuries took their toll on the Flames' current lineup in the end as sophomore middle blocker Austin Leach, senior opposite hitter Zach Lamoureux, and freshman outside hitter Jack Byers sat out much of the final match.
"They just saw a lot of repetition throughout the day, and their bodies broke down a little bit at the end," Knapp said. "We had multiple guys step up and see that starting role throughout the day, and it was great to see those guys be willing to be challenged and push through a new environment that they haven't been in before in competition yet this year."
The alumni team, which featured setter Tommy Speelman, middle blockers Gene De Jesus, Ben Dowd, and John Sauder, Taggart and fellow outside hitter Cross Edwards, libero Mason Ellenberger, right-side hitters Cooper Guillaume and Jake Alderfer, wasn't spared the injury bug. But as the No. 1 seed, the Flames overcame the pain to sweep their way to the semifinals, going 8-1 overall.
Edwards injured his calf muscle early in the first game of his first match and Speelman pulled a muscle in his back but played through it.
"We played pretty well," Taggart said. "It was fun to knock off some cobwebs and play. Tommy Speelman was our captain, our leader of the group, our setter. He helped set everything up."
"It was pretty rag-tag," Speelman said. "We just put it together last night. It was fun. We beat them earlier in the day and then we ran out of gas."
"I'm like old now, so it takes a long time to heal up," Edwards added. "We miss the game a lot, but you can tell our bodies are all broken right now. It's been a long couple years without playing."
In the championship match, the Flames' DI squad trailed UVA 6-1 early before rallying to win the first game. Senior outside hitter Zach Bell's block winner to lift them to a 20-19 lead before freshman Ian McKee added a stuff block and dink from the middle on game point.
Junior outside hitter Josh Davis was blocked by UVA's right-side hitter early in Game 2 before he spiked a kill from the left side to pull the Flames back within 6-5. Back-to-back kills by Bell and another by Davis off sets from senior setter Josh Culpepper kept Liberty within 12-10 before UVA started to pull away. A kill by Bell, service winner by Culpepper, kill by McKee, and block winners by Davis and Leach pulled the Flames back within 22-19, but the Cavaliers forced a third-game tiebreaker with a series of powerful kills down the stretch.
"UVA's got a good 6-2 offense going with two setters and a pretty good right-side hitter and a good outside hitter as well," said Culpepper, who kept the Cavaliers on the defensive with his powerful topspin jump serving. "I didn't miss too many serves. I was really trying to let them make the errors."
Kills by Bell, Davis, and Culpepper and blocks by Culpepper and Leach helped Liberty stay in the deciding game, trailing 12-10, but UVA put it away after a couple questionable calls against the Flames.
"This is a preseason tournament and even paid officials are not perfect," Knapp said. "They don't see everything. Every single day in practice, we make sure we play through those calls."
Liberty's Division II team was able to handle the adversity in its decisive third game against the Wolfpack. After Flames junior Guilherme Moura Queiroz's five-point service run turned a two-point deficit into a three-point lead, sophomore outside hitter Connor Cranage came up big, spiking the game-winner on match point after having a couple of calls go against him.
"I told the guys, 'Hey, we'll play through calls and honor what the refs give us,'" said Liberty third-year volunteer Assistant Coach Stephen Patag, who is a fourth-year medical student at the Liberty University College of Osteopathic Medicine. "We respect the refs, we play through the calls, and we side-out and get the point."
Liberty committed service errors on three consecutive match points, but with the DI roster supporting them on the sideline, the Flames didn't lose hope but instead found a way to win.
"The result of the team was fantastic, the way they picked each other up, even after mistakes," Patag said. "That was an MVP performance from Connor (Cranage), our outside hitter. I was proud of the guys, how they rallied through it. We lost the first set and the guys responded well and rebounded. We made a few errors on our serves, but I wanted them to be aggressive, and I really saw them respond well to our practice and our training."
Queiroz, from Brazil, provided floor leadership rotating from the front to back row with Cranage.
"The chemistry on and off the court is really good," Queiroz said. "We go out and know each other very well and we trust each other. Even when we lost the lead or were tied, just those high-pressure moments, we've got to maintain the energy and play together and communicate. Stephen Patag did an amazing job today. Every huddle, he was talking about picking up the guy next to you. This is only the start. We can only build up from here."
"I really wanted them to believe in themselves, and have that confidence to trust one another, and I saw the camaraderie of the team rally behind each other," Patag added. "That's what the sport is about, everyone having fun and playing well together while respecting the refs and the opponent, and they did a really good job of that today."
Liberty's alumni team showed that same spirit of competition and unity, even without having the opportunity to practice together prior to the tournament.
Five members of the alumni team, plus its honorary coach — former Flames Football tight end JT Wood ('22) from Jacksonville, Fla., who flies J-170 jets for Republic based out of Louisville, Ky.; and servicing Chicago, Detroit, and cities along the East Coast — are graduates of Liberty's School of Aeronautics, with a few of them flying in for the tournament.
Speelman, who lives in Virginia Beach, flies Beechcraft King Air planes for Dynamic, which does government contract work, spending two months in Saudi Arabia, a month in Mexico, and a month in the Philippines as well astraveling to California and Alaska.
Taggart, who trained with Wood as a flight instructor at Liberty, is a captain who flies a CRJ commercial planes for Endeavor while Edwards is a first officer based out of Philadelphia.
Meanwhile, Cody Reinsma, who played right-side hitter for the Flames, brought his Dover (Del.) Air Force Academy team to the tournament. While not training and playing with that team, Reinsma flies Lockheed C-5 Galaxy military transport aircraft for the U.S. Air Force.
By Ted Allen/Staff Writer
Players Mentioned
OH
/ Men's Volleyball
L
/ Men's Volleyball
OH
/ Men's Volleyball
OH/M
/ Men's Volleyball
OH
/ Men's VolleyballLiberty Club Sports Holistic Development 2024-25
Thursday, May 22
Liberty Men's Volleyball 2025 Spring Update
Thursday, March 06
Liberty Men's Volleyball vs UVA Highlights
Monday, January 27
Liberty Men's Volleyball 2024 Midnight Mayhem Highlights
Tuesday, March 05