The Belmont Abbey men's volleyball team won sets two and three after dropping the opening frame, but the King Tornado won the decisive fifth set to claim a 3-2 victory this afternoon at the Student Center. Set scores were 18-25, 25-22, 25-16 and 8-15. Belmont Abbey is now 0-2 overall and 0-1 in Conference Carolinas, while the Tornado improve to 2-1 overall and 1-1 in league play.

The Crusaders rallied to even the  match at one with a 25-22 set two victory as the Abbey forced a negative hitting attack by the Tornado. Belmont Abbey trailed for most of the set before a late surge pushed the Crusaders ahead.

Behind 19-15, the Abbey won the next four points, using a Brandon Kimbrell kill, and three-straight errors from the Tornado, the last two of which came on Crusader blocks-knotted the set at 19. King won the next point on a ball handling error to move ahead 20-19, but the Crusaders won the next three points to move back in front at 22-20

A Crusader error on the next play inched the lead down to one, but the Abbey won three of the last four points to deadlock the match at one.

Belmont Abbey continued its momentum into the third set, storming out to an 8-1 lead and never looking back. The Crusaders led by as many as 11 at 20-9, and would cruise to a 2-1 match lead with a 25-16 victory, winning the last three points.

King halted the Abbey streak in the fourth set, edging the Crusaders 25-22 after Belmont Abbey led most of the way. A Jon Lowenhagen kill tied the set at 19 and Spencer Fournell gave the Crusaders the lead on the next point, but the Tornado responded with three in a row to surge back into the lead for good. Lowenhagen inched the Abbey to 23-22, but King won the last two points to send the match to a deciding fifth set.

In the fifth, which caps at 15 points, the Tornado pulled away after a 5-5 tie to win the match with a 15-8 score.

Evan Young led the Crusaders with 12 kills while Lowenhagen and Dustin Buell both totaled seven. Derek Sullivan handed out 43 assists and also had seven digs. Kimbrell added nine digs and Johnny Gomez's 18 led all players.