ARLINGTON, Va. -- Though the Elizabethtown College men's volleyball team came up short against Marymount Saturday afternoon, Nick Baxter's record-setting season continued with another conference mark. After recording a team-best 18 kills, Baxter set the CVC season record for kills per set. The Saints won the match 3-1 over the Blue Jays.

A 2-0 lead in the first set quickly turned into a tie, though Mark Hall gave Elizabethtown (11-18, 4-7 CVC) its lead back. The teams continued alternating points until a 5-1 run had the Blue Jays ahead 10-6 and forced Marymount (Va.) (12-13, 7-4 CVC) into a timeout.

The break in play seemed to be what the Saints needed, as they outscored E-town 6-1 over the next seven points to grab a 12-11 lead. While the Jays were able to keep it close and even tie it up a few times, Marymount continued to remain in front.

Baxter and Ethan Maurer worked to keep Elizabethtown in it, but the Blue Jays ran out of time and MM took set one, 25-21.

After the Saints took set two convincingly, the third set was a marathon. No team led by more than three points through the first 48 points, in which case, both teams were tied 24-24. Kyle Murray's solo block on Remington Shahan had Elizabethtown a point away from keeping the match alive.

A service error prevented it as set three continued on. E-town had another three chances to close it out, but the Saints were resilient and wouldn't allow it to happen so easily. Finally, back-to-back kills from Maurer and Baxter wrapped it up, 31-29, and the Jays were back in it at 2-1 in the match.

Elizabethtown picked a bad set to have their worst hitting percentage of the match and Marymount took advantage of that. They got out in front of the Blue Jays 8-4 and slowly worked at increasing their lead. Another 6-1 spurt made it 19-10. E-town closed the gap to six as Nick Spangler continued to feed his top two hitters in Baxter and Maurer.

EC was as close as 22-17, but the Saints put the match away with three straight to end it.

At the conclusion of the match, Baxter's 4.48 kills per set for the season became the conference's new record, breaking Marymount's TJ Wiechecki's previous record of 4.42 from 2017. Baxter's average is also the sixth-most recorded in NCAA Division III Men's Volleyball history. He is one of only 10 players to finish with at least 4.42 kills per set or higher in a season.