Opposite Cole Hartke saved his best performance for when he was back in his home state.
Hartke led all players with a career-high 29 kills on a .386 attack percentage as No. 6/6 Pepperdine rallied to beat No. 9 Lewis 23-25, 25-25, 25-23, 25-17, 15-11 on Saturday in Romeoville, Illinois.
Hartke had a combined 18 kills in the final three games of the comeback road victory, including a game-high six kills in the final game. The Barrington, Illinois native also with the fifth game tied at 9-9 had three kills in the next four plays to jump start a match-ending 6-2 run for the Waves.
Along with the offensive performance, Hartke had both a career-high 11 digs and seven blocks highlighted with the match-winning block to complete the comeback.
Pepperdine out-hit Lewis .289 to .188 to en route to second win against a top-10 ranked team during this Midwest road trip.
The Flyers after hitting more than .300 in both of the first two games were limited to less than .160 attack percentage in each of the final three games. In addition, Pepperdine finished the match with 13 blocks – 2.5 more blocks than Lewis.
Middle attacker James Eadie led all players with eight blocks, including assisting in the back-to-back blocks to end the match.
Outside attacker Ryan Barnett defensively contributed a team-high 13 digs against the Flyers.
Barnett also had 13 kills and was one of three Waves with more than five kills. Outside attacker Grant Lamoureux coming off the bench finished with nine kills and one error on a .381 attack percentage.
Lewis opposite Oguzhan Oguz in the loss had a team-high 14 kills, while outside attacker Daniel Haber added 13 kills. Middle attacker Shawn Baggs had nine kills and zero errors on a match-best .692 attack percentage.
Baggs also led the Flyers with six blocks in the team’s second consecutive loss to a nationally ranked team.