BENNINGTON, Vt.- Saturday afternoon the Endicott Gulls and the Southern Vermont College Mountaineers Men's Volleyball teams each put its undefeated conference record on the line, at the Mountaineer Athletic Center. In the end the Gulls remained undefeated in New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) play with a 3-0 victory, 25-23, 28-26, and 25-21.
Endicott's Thomas Stoeckinger led the offense with a .391 hitting percentage and 12 kills. Meanwhile, senior outside Jeremy Siden contributed 11 kills for the Gulls. Libero Andrew Slocum held the Mountaineer offense in check with 12 digs to go along with 10 digs from Aaron Jessee. Carter Roche had 24 assists and Jeremy Schlosser assisted on 14 Endicott kills. For the match the Gulls had 11 blocks, with one solo and 20 block assists. Josh Anderson and Stoeckinger each had six block assists.
The Mountaineers offense never was able to ignite, as Anthony Barahona and Corey Mills led the team with seven kills apiece. Freshman, Joseph Dighton and Keven Walley also contributed with five kills in the defeat. Herson Canta led SVC in assists with 17 along with 12 assists from captain Anthony Ayala. Defensively, SVC had 41 digs, led by senior Nick Haggerty with 12.
The entire match lived up to the hype, with all three games going down to the wire. In the first set, Southern Vermont ran out to a 6-0 advantage. However, that was quickly erased when Travis Netheron smacked a kill to knot the score at 15. SVC took adavantage again after a Barahona kill made the first set 21-18 in favor of SVC. Mills then had a kill at 23-21 before Endicott's Siden had three kills to end the first set 25-23 Endicott.
In the second set, SVC once again had an early lead, this time at 3-0. Then, Endicott stormed back and took its biggest lead at 20-15 after a SVC attack error. On the brink of going down 2-0, at 24-20 Southern Vermont made a late run, led by three Connor Murray digs to tie the set at 24. From there the two teams went back and forth, until Netheron landed two straight kills for a 28-26 Endicott victory.
In the final set, the Gulls took the early advantage, at 10-8 and never looked back from there en route to its 3-0 sweep. SVC tried to make another run at 22-18, when Barahona had back to back kills, but two Siden kills ended the final set 25-21.
Endicott improves to .500 overall and 3-0 in NECC play while the Mountaineers drop to 4-6 and 3-1 in conference action. Southern Vermont is off for a week before hosting conference foe Lesley next Saturday at 2PM. The Gulls will host Regis on Wednesday night at 7PM.