Eighth-ranked Lourdes ran its winning streak to eight consecutive matches on Friday evening as the Gray Wolves defeated Cardinal Stritch 25-23, 23-25, 25-17, 25-20 in a contest played at Springfield High School.
 
With the victory, the Gray Wolves have matched the school mark of eight straight victories set Feb. 3 through March 6, 2015.  Lourdes is also off to its best start in program history despite committing 14 service errors in the match.
 
"We gave away a lot of points in the match," head coach Greg Reitz said afterwards.  "We were lucky to come away with a win despite that.  We need to play a lot cleaner to play at the level we expect to play at."
 
Lourdes never trailed in the opening set, scoring six of the first seven points.  The Gray Wolves maintained the advantage, throughout, but needed to withstand a late run by the Wolves after leading 24-20 to secure the set.
 
In the second, Cardinal Stritch hit .324 and committed just three attacker errors to pull out the win.  There were 11 ties in the stanza and neither team led by more than three points.
 
The Gray Wolves fell behind 10-5 in the third set before going on a 20-7 run to retake the lead in the match.  Garrett Jones (Las Vegas, Nev./Las Vegas H.S.) served up a 6-0 run to put Lourdes in front and Ryan Maune (Washington, Mo./Saint Francis Borgia H.S.) led a 5-0 spurt late.  Defensively, Lourdes held the Wolves to -.029 hitting in the set.
 
Lourdes relied upon a 7-0 run behind the service of CJ Rilveria (Kula, Hawaii/Kekaulike H.S.) to put the hosts on top 12-8 and the Gray Wolves would not allow Cardinal Stritch to tie the set the rest of the way.  The Gray Wolves hit .367 in the final set with 17 kills.
 
Maune led Lourdes with 11 kills and hit .562 on the evening while Brendan Brown (Pittsburgh, Pa./North Allegheny H.S.) added eight kills without an error on 16 swings.  Maune was involved in seven of the Gray Wolves' 13 blocks while Brown was credited with six.
 
"Our middles really helped us tonight," Reitz added.  "They helped us raise our hitting percentage and we were able to get them the ball more. We also blocked well as a team which really helped us."
 
Eric Ubior (Guaynabo, P.R./Wesleyan Academy) also had 11 kills while Jones added 10 kills and 10 digs.  As a team, Lourdes hit .280 for the evening as Ryan Ferkel (Kimberly, Wis./Kimberly H.S.) handed out 47 assists to go along with his 13 digs.
 
Scott Fabian led Cardinal Stritch (7-6) with 14 kills while Patrick Ronan added 13 digs to pace the Wolves defensively.
 
Lourdes (10-1) will take to the road for their next six matches, beginning with four next weekend at the Viking Invitational in Marshall, Mo.  The Gray Wolves will face Park at 1 p.m. EST on Friday before battling host Missouri Valley at 5 p.m. EST at the Burns Athletic Complex.