Contact: Nicholas Osterloo, Sports Information Graduate Assistant, 630-637-5302

NAPERVILLE, Ill. (Mar. 26th, 2021) - Completing the season sweep of North Park, the North Central College men's volleyball team sunk the Vikings in straight sets on Saturday afternoon inside of Gregory Arena.

Early in the first set, Matt Nealon used his lone service ace of the match to give North Central a 6-2 advantage. Later in the set, back-to-back kills from Jared Moser and Jake Miller pushed the Cardinals ahead 15-9 as they would never trail in the opening set and end up on top, 25-19. 

Following back-and-forth action in set two, Kevin Braceros' second kill of the set tied the contest at five apiece. Giving Nealon his ninth assist of the set was Nathan Jones who converted the kill to give North Central a 13-12 lead. The Cardinals then rattled off 12 of the next 15 points to close out the second set, 25-15.

In what would be the final set of the day, Samuel Kharasch's sixth career kill put the Cardinals up 4-2 early on. A Viking kill tied the set at 13-13 as there were 11 ties and six lead changes throughout the set. North Central then took advantage of two North Park attack errors to finish the set 25-22, and the match, 3-0.

Two Cardinals racked up double-digit kills as Moser finished with 12 while Jeremy Cardenas totaled 10. Nealon dished out 29 assists over the three sets and Kharasch posted 14 digs throughout the match as libero. In total, North Central hit .326 as a team, including a .536 second set.

For the Vikings, Erik Bullard recorded 14 kills and 1.5 total blocks. North Park used two setters as Alejandro Condoy posted 16 assists and Teddy Gedville tallied 10. As a team, they hit .177.

North Central heads south to face Millikin on Monday night at 7:00 PM in the Griswold Center. You can find links to the live stream and live stats HERE.

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