DUDLEY, Mass. – The No. 2 seed Nichols men's volleyball team used a massive fourth and fifth set effort to erase a 1-2 deficit and defeat No. 3 Eastern Nazarene in the New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) in five sets on Thursday night at the Nichols Athletic Center and punch their ticket back to the conference championship match.

Nichols won by set scores of 25-20, 22-25, 25-27, 25-16, 15-11 to nab its 21st victory of the campaign, while Eastern Nazarene, who was limited to a .082 hitting percentage on the night, finishes 18-13.

Earning their second win over Eastern Nazarene this season, the Bison now sit at 8-2 in the all-time series versus the Lions.
 
Dylan Urbanski commanded the offense with 48 assists in the victory, with Carlos Mercado taking the charge with 22 kills with only 6 errors on 51 attempts to hit .314 in the match. Tanner Soracco followed up Mercado with a double-digit kill performance of his own, notching 16 kills at a .519 clip in the victory.
 
Dylan Knapp recorded 7 kills on the outing to go along with a solo block and five block assists as the Bison came away with 12 total blocks.
 
Nicholas Basco led all players with 17 digs, followed up by Soracco's nine, Mercado's eight, Urbanski's seven, and Jake Harasyko's six.
 
Nichols is now set to face off against the top seed, Endicott, in the NECC Championship match for the second time in as many years on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. at MacDonald Gymnasium. The match will mark the second meeting in a week between both squads, as the Gulls downed the Bison in straight sets on April 8. In last year's title match, Endicott came out victorious in four sets to earn the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.