Charleston outside attacker Max Senica has already led Australia to the nation’s best all-time finish at the Asian Men’s U23 Volleyball Championship — and the tournament isn’t over yet.
Senica finished back-to-back matches with a team high in kills as Australia went undefeated in the opening round to earn a quarterfinal berth.
The All-EIVA outside attacker led all players with a 19 kills in Australia’s tournament-opening sweep against Sri Lanka on Saturday. In addition, Senica had a match-best 15 kills to help Australia defeat Hong Kong in four games on Sunday.
Along with these two offensive performances, Senica was among the team leaders contributing 10 points in Australia’s five-game victory against the host-nation Myanmar on Monday.
Australia with that opening-round finale victory clinched its pool championship and a spot in the quarterfinals. This is the first time that Australia has qualified for the quarterfinals since this bi-annual event started in 2015.
Seeding for the quarterfinals on Friday will be determined following all eight of the qualified team playing two second-round matches.
Australia as the Pool A champions will play Chinese Taipei in its second-round opener on Wednesday and then will face the Pool C champions Pakistan on Thursday.
Senica is the only active NCAA player participating at the Asian U23 Championship. The outside attacker earned a spot on the Australian roster after finishing the 2019 season with Charleston among the conference leaders averaging 2.25 kills per game and 1.54 digs per game.