Oshkosh I Struggles at Nationals (4-14-08)
UW-Oshkosh finished an up and down season with a 21st place finish at the NIRSA Division I NIRSA championship held on Thursday through Saturday (April 10-12) in Dallas, Texas. The finish snapped a five-year string of finishing fifth or better at the championship.
The Titans entered the tournament as the reigning two-time national champions.
UW-Oshkosh (51-11), who won 50 or more matches for a fourth straight year, started pool play on Thursday with a relatively easy 25-19, 25-21 victory over Loyola Marymount University.
Tyler Boddy (Fr. - New Ulm, Minn.), John Erickson (Sr. - Ripon) and Nathan Malewiski (Sr. - New Franken) each had six kills and Danny Hessling (Jr. - Greenfield) and Nathan Sederberg (Sr. - Racine) tallied five in a balanced Titans attack.
Aaron Wayne (Sr. - New Berlin) had six digs and Brandon Kirkland (Sr. - Racine) has 26 assists and three service aces. Jordan Jung (Gr. - Muskego) scooped up four digs.
In the second match on Thursday, UW-Oshkosh faced Northeastern University (Mass.) and pulled out a 25-21, 25-23 win. Boddy paced the Titans with seven kills and Erickson and Sederberg added six kills. Kirkland added 21 assists, four digs and two blocks.
In the final pool play match on Thursday, the Titans could not close out the match and lost to California Polytechnic San Luis Obispo 22-25, 26-24, 15-10. It was the first time in five years that the Titans lost an opening round pool play match.
Sederberg led the team with nine kills and Boddy and Malewiski each added six kills and three service aces. Wayne had seven digs and Kirkland dished out 26 assists. The Titans struggled at the net committing 26 hitting errors while only putting down a total of 32 kills.
In Friday's challenge match the Titans regrouped to eliminate the University of Wisconsin from gold bracket contention with a 25-20, 25-15 thrashing. Boddy slammed down eight kills and Erickson had six kills and four service aces. Wayne again led the team with five digs and Malewiski had three blocks.
In Friday's power pool, UW-Oshkosh lost a tough match to Arizona State University 25-19, 26-24. The Titans held a 24-21 lead in game two but gave up five straight points, three on hitting errors. Erickson and Malewiski had six kills, followed by Boddy, Hessling and Sederberg with five. Kirkland had 25 assists and Wayne scooped up six digs. Erickson had three service aces. The Titans could only muster up one solo block in the contest.
In the final power pool match, UW-Oshkosh could not beat a senior-laden Lakeland College team for the fifth time this season and fell 25-22, 25-21. Sederberg had nine kills and three digs. Boddy had eight kills in nine attempts and Malewiski had six kills. Wayne led the team with five digs and Kirkland ran the offense with 28 assists.
In Saturday's opening round of the silver bracket the Titans pulled out a 25-15, 28-26 victory over Boston University (Mass.).
Hessling was a perfect seven for seven in kills and Dan Ruys (Fr. - Kimberly) had four kills in six attempts and added four blocks. Malewiski also had four stuffs and added three service aces and Jung had a team-leading four digs. Andy Schinner (Fr. - Mequon) had 17 assists.
UW-Oshkosh ended the tournament with a tough 25-21, 35-33 loss to Stanford University (Calif.). Sederberg had 13 kills, including 10 in the second game and added five digs. Malewiski added eight kills and Wayne had nine digs and three service aces.
"I give our team a lot of credit," said head coach Brian Schaefer. "We could have cashed in the tournament after not reaching the gold bracket but we played hard, especially our graduating players Jordan Jung, Brandon Kirkland and Nathan Malewiski."
"Hopefully next year with an added year of experience we can do a better job of winning close games," added Schaefer. "We had a hard time this year with developing consistency in close matches."
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