St. Thomas Aquinas sweeps Roberts Wesleyan to win back-to-back ECC regular season titles

Photo courtesy of St. Thomas Aquinas athletics

Pin-hitter Gabriel Vieira left no doubt that St. Thomas would be raising another championship banner.

Vieira finished with a team-high 14 kills as St. Thomas Aquinas swept Roberts Wesleyan 25-20, 25-18, 25-18 on Saturday in Rochester, New York to repeat as ECC regular season champions.

Vieira led all players with seven kills in the final game to complete the sweep and keep the Trojans undefeated in conference play. The sophomore from Brazil also committed one error in the third game and ended the match with a .300 attack percentage.

This was the 13th time this season that Vieira had double-digit kills and hit at least .300. In addition, Vieira finished the weekend second in the nation with a 4.37 kills per game average.

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Along with Vieira, opposite contributed nine kills and zero errors on a .500 attack percentage against Roberts Wesleyan.

Setter Marcus Franck guided the St. Thomas Aquinas offense to out-hit Roberts Wesleyan .321 to .165, including the team having a match-best .500 attack percentage in the final game.

Franck added four blocks, while middle attacker David Weiss had a match-high five blocks.

Libero Iaylo Todorov defensively also led all players with 15 digs.

Robert Wesleyan pin-hitter Ryan DeJohn in the loss had a match-high 15 kills. DeJohn, though, was the only Robert Wesleyan player to have more than seven kills.

St. Thomas Aquinas as the conference regular season champion will be the No. 1 seed for the upcoming ECC Tournament later this month.