Lourdes secured its third straight trip to the NAIA National Invitational on Saturday afternoon, defeating sixth-ranked Benedictine-Mesa 25-18, 25-20, 15-25, 25-19 inside the Russell J. Ebeid Recreation Center to win the Independent Group tournament.
 
"We had to battle to come away with a win against a very high quality team," head coach Greg Reitz said following the win.  "I thought we played a pretty consistent match for the most part.  We dropped off a bit in the third set, but rebounded in the fourth."
 
The fifth-ranked Gray Wolves came out on fire offensively, hitting .538 with 15 kills and just one error in the opening set.  Trailing 9-6, Lourdes went on a 10-1 run, in large part due to the service of Matheus Andrade (Coronel Fabriciniano, Brazil/Alberto Giovannini H.S.).  After taking the 16-10 lead, the two teams nearly sided out every point the rest of the set.
 
Set two had eight ties, the last at 11-11, before the Gray Wolves took the lead for good with three consecutive points.  Lourdes went on another three-point run late to increase the advantage to five, giving the hosts a 2-0 lead in the match.
 
Benedictine-Mesa (18-7) was able to force a fourth set after hitting .417 with 16 kills in the third.  The Redhawks never trailed in the stanza, and utilized a 6-2 run late to put the set away.
 
Lourdes took control early in the fourth, taking the lead for good at 4-3.  Leading 13-11, the Gray Wolves scored the next four points on the way to capturing the championship.
 
Andrade led the Gray Wolves with 12 kills and 13 digs while Evan Gebert (Fort Wayne, Ind./Snider H.S.) added 11 kills and 12 digs.  Ricardo Gehrke (Blumenau, Brazil/Escola Barao Do Rio Branco H.S.) hit .318 with 10 kills.
 
Ian Fields (Phoenix, Ariz./Sandra Day O'Connor H.S.) handed out 27 assists while Henrique Gehrke (Blumenau, Brazil/Escola Barao Do Rio Branco H.S.) had 17 more helpers as the duo helped quarterback an offense that hit .292 on the afternoon.  Fields also had 10 digs defensively while Brendan Brown (Pittsburgh, Pa./North Allegheny H.S.) added six blocks.
 
Logan Adcock led Benedictine-Mesa with 19 kills while Jesus Izaguirre had 18 digs.  As a team, the Redhawks hit .243 for the match and outdug the Gray Wolves 54-50 while holding a 12-10 block advantage.
 
Lourdes (21-6) will find out its pool play opponents on Sunday afternoon for the NAIA National Invitational.  Action begins on Tuesday, April 17 in Des Moines, Iowa on the campus of Grand View University.