PLYMOUTH, Wis. – Ben Busalacchi (Sr.-Muskego, Wis.) delivered the final two kills of the match, the second converting the third match point for the Lakeland University men's volleyball team as it picked up a big win, defeating Edgewood College in five sets Tuesday night at the Moose & Dona Woltzen Gymnasium.

The Muskies outlasted the Eagles 23-25, 25-18, 25-18, 24-26, 16-14 to win a big Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference match. Lakeland (7-12 overall, 4-5 NACC) moved past the Eagles into eighth place in the conference standings with three regular season conference matches remaining, with the top eight finishers in the regular season advancing to the NACC Tournament.

In what has become almost a prerequisite for a Muskies match this season, the teams played for a long time, 2 hours and 11 minutes in Lakeland's ninth five-set match of the season. The Muskies improved to 5-4 in those matches, though, including their last four victories all coming in five sets.

Lakeland played one of its cleanest matches of the season, hitting .271 with 61 kills and 23 errors. The Muskies posted their second-best attack percentage of the season, including hitting better than .292 in four of five sets, and .409 in the deciding fifth set.

The teams combined for 30 ties and 13 lead changes in the match, including 20 ties and nine lead changes over the final two sets. Fourteen of Lakeland's 23 hitting errors came in the fourth set, when the Muskies still held leads of 20-17 and 22-20, and also earned their first match point at 24-23 before the Eagles (8-14 overall, 4-6 NACC) bounced back to take the final three points and send the match to one more set.

Lakeland took an early 5-3 lead in the fifth set after a kill by Eli Weinrich (So.-Mequon, Wis.), but the Eagles scored the next three points to go ahead. The Muskies would come back to score the next two points to regain the lead, though, and would never trail again, though the path to victory was far more complicated than that.

Lakeland built a two-point lead at 10-8 and the teams would alternate points all the way to 13-11 after another kill by Weinrich. The Eagles would come back to knot the score at 13-13, though, before Weinrich's fourth kill of the set gave Lakeland its second match point. Gavin Patterson responded with a big kill to keep Edgewood alive at 14-14, but Busalacchi closed it out with kills on the final two points to finally close it out.

Busalacchi and Weinrich both finished with 13 kills each, and Jakob Donohue (So.-Milwaukee, Wis.) and Levi Everts (Jr.-Hartford, Wis.) added 11 kills apiece, including Donohue setting a career high.

Drew Green (Sr.-Brooklyn Center, Minn.) led the defense with 19 digs and Chase Anderson (So.-Hartford, Wis.) posted 36 assists. Everts also just missed a triple-double, finishing with 11 assists and nine digs.

Edgewood hit .197 as a team with 47 kills and 21 errors and was led by Ryder Hill-Zastrow with 14 kills. Patterson added 11 kills and 11 digs and Max Dermody finished with nine kills and 12 digs.

Lakeland is in action at home again Thursday for a matinee against nationally ranked UC Santa Cruz, with the teams set for a noon start Woltzen Gymnasium.