Contact: Taiah Gallisath, Sports Information Graduate Assistant, 630-637-5302

Feb. 12, 2022 - The North Central College men's volleyball team exhausted the University of Mount Union Raiders in a quick three-set win on Saturday afternoon inside Gregory Arena.

Despite struggling to get the ball in play, the Raiders gave the Cardinals a run for their money as they maintained the lead for much of the first half of set one. A pair of kills by Ben Williams and Austin Scott secured the lead for the first time at 12-10 and battled to stay ahead. With the score at 24-21 in favor of the Cardinals, the Raiders took advantage of a kill by Sam Matonis and a service ace by Cameron Ternent to tie it up at 24-24. A kill by Williams and an error by the Raiders helped the Cardinals to a 26-24 set win.

Finding their momentum, the Cardinals pulled ahead 3-0 to start set two. North Central found room for two scoring sprees of five and four points to secue set two in a wide margin of 25-13. Williams had five kills and a service ace in set two while Scott and Nathan Jones raked in three kills each.

Set three saw back-and-forth action that tied the score up at 4-4 before a kill by Hayden Coday rallied the Cardinals to a six-point lead that also highlighted a service ace by Matt Nealon, a kill by Williams, and two more by Jared Moser. North Central lead Mount Union through all of set three to take the set 25-18.

Moser led the team offensively with 13 kills while Williams and Scott had nine and eight kills, respectively. Nealon held 34 of the team's 37 assists on the afternoon and had his share of service aces along with Moser and Williams. Defensively, Scott shared the limelight with Parker Nelson as both had seven digs.

For the Raiders, Andrew Cross was the team's lead on offense with nine kills followed by Sam Matonis' six. Will Heeney led with 14 assists followed by Caleb Dawson with nine. Steven Grenier led the Raiders with nine digs.

The 6-0, sixth-ranked Cardinals begin conference play on Tuesday as they travel to Chicago, Ill. for a match against North Park University.

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