Despite not having its best player available Thursday for the Commander’s Cup Volleyball Tournament Championship game, the 11th Engineer Battalion Team 1 thwarted MEDDAC’s attempt to avenge its loss to the Engineers in the preseason tournament championship with a 21-19, 21-14 sweep in the final round at Kefurt Fitness Center.
MEDDAC defeated the Manuever Captains Career Course to make its way out of the loser’s bracket of the double-elimination tournament and needed to defeat the Engineers twice to win the championship. MEDDAC put the Engineers on their heels by winning the “must-win” round in three sets, 21-10, 14-21, 15-5.
The Engineers responded in the deciding match, especially with the front play of Charles Knauff, who came up with four momentum-shifting kills in the second set in which the Engineers went on a late 5-0 run to an 18-12 lead.
“He was able to do that (kill shots) two or three times in a row and when he did that, the momentum fell to them,” MEDDAC team captain Emmanuel Guadalupe said.
Knauff sealed the championship when he aced the game’s final serve.
Knauff, who filled in as interim team captain in place of Siatuvai Ioane, also exploited holes in the MEDDAC defense when they overcommitted to try and block a kill attempt.
“When we see him jumping, we had to have two blockers there and he knew that, so he just dinged it over us,” Guadalupe said of Knauff.
Despite missing Ioane, Knauff said he came into the matchup feeling strong about the play of his team.
“We felt like we had a pretty good chance,” Knauff said. “I knew it was going to be a challenge without having him here. We had to pull together as a team and be vocal to fill his position.”
Guadalupe said he noticed it didn’t take long for the Engineers to figure out where they could compensate for Ioane’s absence.
“The first set, they were out of sync,” Guadalupe said. “The second set, they were a little bit better and the third set, they were where they needed to be.”
The meeting was a rematch of the preseason tournament championship, which Knauff said came as no surprise to him.
“We always knew MEDDAC was going to be our chief competition,” Knauff said. William Kaleopa had seven kills for the Engineers in the final match while Jonathan McKinney led MEDDAC, also with seven kills.
