SAINTS DOWN LIONS IN CROSSTOWN VOLLEYBALL RIVALRY

BOSTON, Mass. – The balanced offensive attack powered the Emmanuel College Men's Volleyball Team to a 3-1 win at Emerson College on Tuesday night. After falling 21-25 in the opening set, the Saints recovered to take the next three sets from the host Lions, 25-13, 25-15, 25-19. With the loss, the Lions are now 8-7 overall and 3-3 in Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) play, while Emmanuel improves to 9-8 on the year and 4-2 in the GNAC.

Lion defense featured six team blocks in the first set with Jackson Wiley leading the Emerson offense with his .429 hitting, which included 4 kills. Set two saw the Saints march right back into the match, as they crushed a .588 average in with Austin Cockerill flooring six kills for a .625 average. Defense played key again as Emmanuel put up four blocks in the set with three assisted blocks coming from Garrett McGarry to rip off a 25-13 win and tie the match at 1-1.

The Lions struggled offensively in the third set and the Saints put up three blocks to stifle Emerson's attack. Emmanuel's Zach Whitermore led the floor in the set with five kills for a .667 average, as the Saints took set three 25-15.  Ashanti Jackson stole the show in the fourth set for Emmanuel, as he dropped five kills in for a .714 average, along with two block assists and a solo block.  Wiley threw down five kills for the Lions, but attack and serving errors hurt the hosts, who fell 25-19 in the fourth.

Whitermore, Cockerill and Jackson all hit in double-figures for the Saints, who hit at a clip of .327 as a team. Whitermore smashed down 15 kills, while Cockerill added 14 and 6 assisted blocks.  Jackson rattled off 11 kills, collected 6 digs and finished the night with 3 BS and 3 BAs.  Junior setter Sean Baxley dished out a match-high 42 assists and added a match-high 11 digs to his double-double stat line.  McGarry tallied 7 block assists on the night.

Dimitri Gorenec paced the Lions with his eight kills, six assisted blocks and one solo block.

The Lions will take to the road for another GNAC match-up on Thursday night, when they travel to Rivier to take on the Raiders at 7:00 PM in Nashua, N.H.  Emmanuel will host Wentworth Institute of Technology on Thursday in a GNAC match beginning at 7:00 PM.

- Portions of this release courtesy of Emerson College