GUELPH, Ontario – First-year outside Eric Loeppky (Steinbach, Man.) had a match-high 14 kills and fellow freshman setter Maddux Greves (Calgary) had 39 assists as the Spartans rallied for a 3-2 (22-25, 25-22, 21-25, 25-21, 15-8) win over Guelph in preseason action Tuesday.

Playing against a hard-serving Gryphons side – Guelph collected 12 aces – the Spartans trailed early, but rallied to even the match at 1-1 and then again at 2-2 before taking the fifth set.

TWU hit .272 as a team and had 11 blocks compared with Guelph's .107 hitting percentage and six blocks. However, it was Guelph's serving game that kept that match close.

"It was a crazy game," said Spartans coach Ben Josephson. "Our opponent served unreal. We were playing in their old gym – they're getting a really nice new facility – but it was this old gym with character and man they can serve well in there. They had some really great serving performances from a bunch of their athletes and our receivers didn't hold up under that kind of pressure. That, combined with the fact we had some serving trouble in the first part of the match, put us in a difficult spot. But I thought we did a good job of fixing some things and playing great block defence. Our middles came alive and Maddux did a great job of finding rhythm in his first CIS start. It was a cool match for lots of different reasons and it was another great lesson."

The Spartans are 6-2 in the preseason. They play Waterloo Wednesday at 7 p.m. (ET).

-TW-