MILWAUKEE - The No. 14 MSOE men's volleyball team had a dominant first set, but faded down the stretch in dropping a 17-25, 29-27, 25-22, 25-15 match to No. 8 Carthage Thursday evening at the Kern Center.

The Raiders (8-3, 1-2 MCVL) hit .522 in claiming the opening set against the Red Men (4-2, 2-0 MCVL), but dropped an extended second set and could not recover.

Senior Nick Manning finished with a match-best 16 kills. Junior Brett Herbers finished with nine and freshman Neil Naughton tallied eight. Freshman Quin Krisik had 47 assists in the match.

Carthage had a balanced attack with Jon Storm and Paul Eggers III each tallying 10 kills. Three more players had at least seven kills each.

MSOE rattled off a pair of extended runs to take control of the first set, finishing strong with nine of the final 10 points of the set. A 6-0 run turned a 7-10 deficit into a 13-10 lead. Then, with the teams tied at 16, the team scored six-straight points to go ahead 22-16 before closing the set with three-straight points.

In the second set, the Raiders played ahead after a 3-0 run gave them the lead at 13-12. They would continue to play from the lead late into frame, but the Red Men fended off a pair of set points to send the set into extra points. Back-to-back points gave Carthage the advantage and it finished the final two points for the 29-27 win.

The third set was equally as close, as neither team was able to pull away. The visitors never led by more than three, but were able to stave off the Raiders advances. The Raiders then ran out of steam in the final set as Carthage posted a couple smaller runs and a 5-0 spurt in the middle of the set to take control.

After a dominant first set, the MSOE attack did not hit higher than .152 in a set the rest of the match and finished at .190. It did finish with nine more kills (53-44) than the Red Men, but was narrowly outhit by the visitors (.198).

MSOE returns to the court Saturday at Dominican.