Contact: Taiah Gallisath, Sports Information Graduate Assistant, 630-637-5302
Apr. 2, 2022 - The North Central College men's volleyball team produce quite a send-off for solo senior,
Matt Nealon on Saturday afternoon as they swept Millikin University 3-0. Nealon achieved his 1,200 career assist on his senior day and the Cardinals set a new program record for wins in a single season at 18.
North Central stole the lead early in set one thanks to a kill by Nathan Jones, sparking a five-point run to put the Cardinals ahead by 10 at 18-8. The Cardinals allowed a little bit of room for the Big Blue but kills by Jeremy Cardenas, Jared Moser and Austin Scott shut down set one 25-17.
Holding the Big Blue to single-digit sets the rest of the match, North Central boosted their .348 hitting percentage to .667 and .619 for the last two sets. The Cardinals scored seven-consecutive points to pull ahead 11-2 to start set two. As Millikin struggled to put points on the board, back-to-back kills by Moser and Jake Miller helped the Cardinals to their second set win of the day taking it 25-9.
Set three saw the Cardinals with an early lead yet again, as kills by North Central's three lead scorers--Scott, Moser, and Cardenas--brought the score to 8-3. Millikin had their last opportunity to score earning a point on a service error by Scott before Cardenas took over serving for the next 16-consecutive points. Nine of the Cardinals' last 16 points came from errors by the Big Blue while kills coming from Nealon, Scott, Jones and Moser led the Cardinals to a 25-4 set win.
Moser led the Cardinals in kills with 13, while Scott had 10 and Cardenas had five. Needing only 22 assists to hit his 1,200 career assist, Nealon totaled 32 assists on the day. Moser and Cardenas each had two service aces and Moser led in digs with five. Jones was in on three of the Cardinals' eight blocks.
Jose Gallardo led the Big Blue with five kills while Connor Fosselius had four. Robbie Maida tallied 12 assists on the day while JT Minnick and Chelan Beavers had five digs each.
The Cardinals earned the No. 2 seed in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) due to a tiebreaker and will host the Loras College Duhawks for the first round of the CCIW tournament on Wednesday, Apr. 6 at 7 p.m. inside Gregory Arena.
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