Bears Volleyball Falls in Straight Sets to Lehman College

BRONX, N.Y. – The St. Joseph's College (Brooklyn) men's volleyball team dropped a straight-set non-conference decision to Lehman College, 3-0 (25-17, 25-12, 25-10) on Saturday afternoon at the APEX at Lehman College.

St. Joseph's (2-7) loses their second straight match in a tough back-to-back situation with a hard fought game last night against Cooper Union and an early start today.

The Bears were led by sophomore Raul Urshela (Orlando, FL/Colonial) who paced the Bears with nine kills while also collecting two digs and an assist. Junior Iqbal Husain (West Palm Beach, FL/Palm Beach Gardens) guided the offense with 12 assists while bringing up 4 digs and putting down one kill. Junior Mohamed El Amri (Tangier, Morocco/American School of Tangier) anchored the defense with five digs. Senior Martin Torres (Ozone Park, NY/St. Francis Prep) finished second on the team recording five kills and led the team with two service aces.

Lehman (9-9) was paced by Brian Francisco who nearly recorded a double-double finishing with eight kills and ten digs while also contributing six service aces. Luis Colon was the primary facilitator of the offense dishing out 22 assists.

The Lightning trailed only once in the entire match when the Bears led 3-2 in the first set but that would be the last time that St. Joseph's had the lead as Lehman dominated the three sets with an impressive .421 hitting percentage putting down 32 kills while utilizing the serve to their advantage having 15 service aces as a team.

For the match, the Bears had a hitting percentage of .141 with their best performance coming in the first set when they hit .174. St. Joseph's finished the match with 20 kills but had trouble with Lehman's serves finishing with 15 service errors.

The Bears return home for a matchup against borough rival Brooklyn College on Tuesday, March 12th at Brooklyn Technical High School with first serve set for 7:30 p.m.