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Outside attacker Zach Puentes continued their torrid offensive pace all the way to a conference regular season title.
Puentes finished with a match-high 12 kills on a .300 attack percentage as Belmont Abbey swept King 25-23, 25-21, 27-25 on Saturday in Belmont, North Carolina, to clinch the ConfCarolinas regular season championship.
This was the seventh consecutive ConfCarolians match that Puentes had double-digit kills. In addition, Puentes entered the weekend fourth in the ConfCarolinas and among the national leaders with a 3.34 kills per game average.
Puentes against King had four kills in each of the three games and did not commit more than two attack errors in any of the games. The outside attacker also had the match-winning kill to secure Belmont Abbey’s first conference regular season title in program history.
Belmont Abbey in the victory out-hit the defending ConfCarolinas champions King .304 to .229 and had four players with more than five kills.
Along with Puentes, both Matthew Staskunas and Jibriel Elhaddad had eight kills and Alex Winiarczyk added seven kills.
Libero Alejandro Leon defensively led all players with 13 digs.
King pin-hitter AJ Drooker in the loss had a team-high 11 kills and hit a match-best .500 attack percentage. Pin-hitter Warren Davis also added nine kills, while Kellan Kennedy added six kills on a .455 attack percentage.
Belmont Abbey as the ConfCarolinas regular season champions will be the No. 1 seed for the conference tournament and will have a bye to the semifinals.