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Nothing was stopping outside attacker Gabriel Vierira in the most critical moments of the match.
Vierira in the decisive fifth game had nine kills as St. Thomas Aquinas defeated Long Island 25-15, 25-20, 21-25, 19-25, 15-12 on Tuesday in Brooklyn, New York.
Four of the Spartans’ final six points were kills from Vierira, including back-to-back kills to close out the match. In addition, the sophomore from Brazil opened the fifth game having kills on the first five Spartans’ points and had all of the team’s kills during the entire game.
Vierira for the match led all players with a season-high 26 kills on a .358 attack percentage en route to St. Thomas Aquinas earning its first win in program history against a Division I opponent.
Setter Marcus Franck guided the second-year program to out-hit Long Island .252 to .237. The Spartans opened the match without committing an attack error until the second game and in the final game had zero errors on a match-best .500 attack percentage.
Along with the offensive performance, Vieira had a team-high 11 digs and was one of two Spartans with double-digit digs.
St. Thomas Aquinas also out-blocked Long Island 13 to 4 highlighted with middle attacker David Weiss having a match-high seven blocks.
Long Island pin-hitter Christopher Knowles in the loss had a team-high 23 kills. Pin-hitter Lucas Ramos added 12 kills, while middle attacker Isaac Benka had 11 kills on a match-best .625 attack percentage against St. Thomas Aquinas.
Despite having multiple comebacks through the match, the loss ended Long Island’s four-match winning streak.
The Sharks trailed by three points midway through the fifth game before ralling to tie the game at 9-9. Long Island later initially tied the game at 13-13, but St. Thomas Aquinas challenged the point and successfully got the call overturned following a lengthy review and officials’ discussion to set up the match-point
The teams with this result split their home-and-home series this season with the road team winning both matches. Long Island defeated St Thoams Aquians in the series opener earlier this month.