GRANTHAM, Pennsylvania—The Mount Union men's volleyball team battled Messiah to five sets, who was receiving votes in the national poll, 25-20, 25-22, 21-25, 30-28 and 12-15 on day one of the Messiah Invitational Friday night.
 
The Purple Raiders (3-2) were led by Jack McClure (Massillon / Jackson) with a season-high 26 kills.
 
Will Heeney (Hudson / Walsh Jesuit) led Mount Union in assists with 42 while Peyton Koszelak (Eden, N.Y. / Eden) led the team in digs with 11 while Heeney finished with nine digs.
 
Messiah (1-0) was led by Alex Kagoro with 30 kills, Brandon Sharp with 56 assists and Kagoro with 12 digs.
 
In set one Mount Union finished with 10 kills and five hitting errors while Messiah had 12 kills and three errors. Both teams finished the first set with one service ace while Mount Union had more errors with six compared to Messiah's three.
 
The second set saw more kills from Messiah as they had 15 compared to Mount Union's eight but Mount Union was much more efficient as they had just two hitting errors compared to the nine from Messiah. Mount Union had just three service errors while Messiah had seven.
 
The third set both teams have the same amount of hitting errors and service errors as both teams finished with five. Messiah had three more kills with 13 compared to Mount Union's 10 and two more aces as Messiah had two.
 
Set four Mount Union had less kills than Messiah 18 to 14 but had more service aces with three compared to one. Mount Union committed less errors as well with just four hitting errors to Messiah's seven and three service errors to Messiah's five.
 
In the final set of the night Mount Union and Messiah each had nine kills the difference however was four hitting errors for Mount Union to Messiah's one.
 
Mount Union returns to play tomorrow taking on Randolph Macon at 11 am and No. 14 Misericordia at 1 pm in Grantham, Pennsylvania.