The Briar Cliff men's volleyball team opened up conference play with a dominating 3-0 win against Morningside Wednesday night in the Newman Flanagan Center. The Chargers won a competitive first set before running away with the final two. The set scores were 25-20, 25-14, 25-16.

On the night the Cliff had an attack percentage of .329 compared to .127 for the Mustangs.

"We played well enough to win," said BC coach Trevor Schirman. "We have to get better at playing well for longer period of time."

The first set looked like a run away for the Blue and Gold as the home team led 14-5, but a string of seven straight points pulled Morningside back to within two. The teams traded mini runs again before Briar Cliff put the set away.

The second set saw the Mustangs only score on the serve once, resulting in the lopsided set final while the third and final set again was handled by the Cliff.

"I do think we served well," added Schirman. "We will improve our consistency."

At the service line, Briar Cliff totaled nine aces with eight serving errors. Morningside also had eight serving errors, but only had one ace on the night. Kimo Rosa had a strong serving performance with five aces while reigning defensive player of the week in the AMGPKCAC Noah Marasco-Ayau had three ace serves.

Brandon Oswald was the only player for either squad to tally double digit kills as he finished with 12. Tyler Godown had eight finishers and a game-high hitting percentage of .615. Riley Owenalso added eight kills while finishing with a swing rate of .375. Nathaniel Johnson had six kills for the Chargers.

On the attack, Morningside was led by Jackson Presha with nine kills. His attack percentage was just .125, however, as Briar Cliff outblocked the Mustangs 7-3. Godown had a game-high four blocks (one solo).

Setter Kyle Cox was on the floor most of the night and finished with 24 of the Cliff's 34 total assists. Diego Aguilar had 22 assists for Morningside. Aguilar led all players in digs with nine, a mark tied by teammate Tatum Gray. Briar Cliff's dig leader was Johnson with seven. BC had 30 digs on the night to Morningside's 28.

The win kept Briar Cliff undefeated as the Chargers now sit at 3-0 overall and 1-0 in league competition. The Mustangs dropped to 1-4 on the season and 0-1 in the AMGPKCAC.

Briar Cliff heads to Des Moines, Iowa this weekend to take part in the Grand View Molten Invitational. The Chargers take on Cardinal Stritch at 2:30 p.m. Friday before facing off against Saint Ambrose at the same time on Saturday.