Contact: Taiah Gallisath, Sports Information Graduate Assistant, tkgallisath@noctrl.edu

AURORA, Ill. (Jan. 24, 2023) - In its first competition on the road, the North Central College men's volleyball team dropped its non-conference match against the Aurora University Spartans in five sets on Tuesday at Thornton Gymnasium.

Despite scoring the opening point of the match, North Central fell behind early on in set one as Aurora utilized Cardinal attacking errors to go on a five-point run and extended their lead to 9-5. The Cardinals battled back to get the score within two. A pair of kills by Austin Scott and a service ace for Luke Schmidt gave North Central the lead late in set one but three straight points by the Spartans gave Aurora the upper hand, 25-23, heading into set two. 

North Central was hot in set two, pulling away early with a 7-2 lead after scoring five-straight points. The Spartans fought their way back within two points until Aurora attacking errors pushed North Central to a 17-10 lead. Jared Moser secured the set two win with back-to-back kills to bring the score to 25-16.

The Cardinals scored five-consecutive points to start the third set and limited Aurora to two-point possessions for the remained of the set. Seven of the Cardinals' final eight points of set three were the result of Spartan errors. North Central took set three 25-17. 

With a 2-1 lead heading into the fourth set, the Cardinals kept the score tight at 10-9 in favor of red. Aurora quickly found their momentum with three straight kills to pull ahead at 13-10 before replicating that effort with a four-point run to take a 21-19 lead. North Central snuck in two more points but eventually fell 25-21.

The fifth set saw three lead changes and six tied scores and while the score hit 8-8, Aurora continued to shut down the Cardinals' offense with a pair of blocks and a few kills by John McCormack securing the fifth set 15-10 and the match 3-2. 

Moser led the Cardinals with 21 kills followed by Scott with 17 while Tyler Donovan totaled 48 assists on the night. Moser also tallied four service aces and the team high 14 digs. Donovan and Cardenas matched for three blocks each.

No. 8 North Central hosts Dominican University on Saturday, Jan. 28 at 3 p.m. inside Gregory Arena. 

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