New York, N.Y. – The St. John Fisher College men's volleyball team dropped a pair of five-set matches on Saturday afternoon as the Cardinals fell to UC Santa Cruz and Hunter College. Fisher wraps up its 2019 regular season with a 20-12 overall on the season, while Santa Cruz improved to 15-14 and the Hawks moved to 17-11 overall.

In its first match of the afternoon, Fisher fell in five sets 23-25, 25-22, 25-22, 23-25, 11-15, while totaling 60 kills versus Santa Cruz.

After falling in a back-and-forth opening set, the Cardinals battled their way back in the second with 17 kills and a .343 hitting percentage.

Fisher would fall behind early in the set, however two straight blocks from Paul Hackford and Mike Strumpfler turned the tables as Fisher gained some momentum. From there, the Cardinals would maintain a lead through the remainder of the set, until a Josh Bigford kill sealed the second set victory.

The extremely competitive match would continue into the third set as both sides would trade points back-and-forth until a 15-15 tie on the scoreboard.

As the set continued, Fisher would use a pair of three-point runs to its advantage, while a Strumpfler kill pushed the Cardinals ahead two sets to one.

Much like the previous two sets, both sides battled trying to gain the early momentum. In the end it was Santa Cruz able to take advantage of a pair of late scoring runs to force a deciding fifth set.
In the fifth set Fisher fell behind 11-5, but would fight its way back to within three with the help of a Kevin Cahill service ace.

In the end, it was Santa Cruz taking the hard earned victory as Fisher would finish the fifth set with seven kills. Bigford led the way in the first match as the freshman posted 17 kills, while Strumpfler added 13. Paul Hackford finished with 49 total assists and David Cerqua added 17 digs.

In the Cardinals' second match of the afternoon, Fisher would fall in another five-set thriller 27-29, 25-23, 26-24, 21-25, 13-15.

Versus the Hawks, the Cardinals finished with 71 total kills as well as 78 digs and 69 assists. Paul Hackford posted a career-high 62 assists, while Bigford wrapped up the regular season with career-high 26 kills.

Fisher would fall in the opening set 27-29 versus Hunter, despite holding a 19-12 advantage. However, the Cardinals battled back in the second set, totaling 16 kills and only two errors for a .412 hitting percentage.

With the score knotted up at 22 apiece, Fisher would score four of the game's next five points to even the match up at one set each. Bigford had two of the final kills, while a block from Ivan Lopez and Bigford capped off the second set win.

Despite falling behind 17-12 midway through the third set, Fisher gained some momentum with the help of two three-point scoring runs. In the end, it was three straight points to finish off the set including a block and kill from Strumpfler pushed Fisher ahead heading into the fourth set.

Once again, back-and-forth action was seen throughout the fourth set as both sides posted 15 kills each. However, Hunter came out on the winning end as the Hawks finished off the fourth set with a 5-2 run.

In the second deciding fifth set of the day, Bigford served up a four-point scoring run midway through that pushed the Cardinals ahead 8-6 as the teams switched sides.

From there, Hunter finished off the match with a pair of three-point runs of its own to give Fisher its second five-set defeat of the afternoon.

Despite the loss, Strumpfler and Andres Ramirez finished with 13 kills apiece, while Cerqua added another 19 digs.

The Cardinals will return to action on Friday at 7:30 p.m. when they travel to Caldwell University to take part in the united Volleyball Conference tournament. Fisher will play as the No. 3 overall seed and take on No. 6 Vassar in the second of two first round matchups on April 12^th.