BEVERLY, Mass. - The No. 7 ranked St. John Fisher College men's volleyball took down the No. 9 ranked Endicott College in four sets (20-25, 25-21, 25-19, 25-14) at the Gulls' MacDonald Gymnasium Saturday. The Cardinals earned their second top-10 win in the last eight days after defeating No. 1 NYU last Saturday.
Fisher now improves to 14-4 on the season while Endicott drops to 13-3. The Cardinals hit .449 in the match, their second-highest hitting percentage in a match this season.
Josh Bigford led all players with 20 kills.
Matt Broderick hit a season-high .667 with 13 kills and
Paul Hackford posted a game-high 43 assists.
The Gulls won the opening set wire-to-wire and then took an a 5-2 lead to start the second frame. The Cardinals gained their composure and used a 5-0 run to earn a 17-11 advantage. Fisher stayed in control down the stretch and
Martin Hackford buried a kill to tie the match at one a piece. In the second set alone, the Cardinals posted 20 kills.
Endicott held an early edge in the third stanza, however, Fisher swung the momentum with a 5-1 run that was capped off by an ace from
Matt Beiter to make it 8-6 in favor of the visitors. The Cardinals never trailed for the rest of the set as they used an 8-2 run to gain a larger lead. A service ace from
Dylan Urbanski made it set point and the Cardinals won two points later to take a two-sets-to-one advantage.
The Cardinals kept their foot on the gas pedal by going up 8-3 to start the fourth. At 15-9 with Bigford serving, Fisher scored five unanswered points with Bigford nailing down three aces. Urbanski set up Bigford for a kill to make it match point and
Ivan Lopez put the final point away as Fisher finished its spring break trip with three victories.
As a team, Fisher had 11 aces in the match with Bigford and
Paul Hackford having three each.
David Cerqua earned a game-high 10 digs. Lopez led all players with five total blocks.
Fisher returns home to host Elmira College at 7 p.m. on Wednesday in a United Volleyball Conference matchup.