ALBANY, N.Y. (2/24/24) – The No. 12 Nichols College men's volleyball program scored a pair of 3-0 victories on Saturday afternoon as part of the Russell Sage College Tri-Match. The Bison opened with a win over the host Gators (25-13, 25-13, 25-21), and later took the win over Ramapo College (25-18, 25-18, 25-15) at the Kahl Campus Center.
With the two wins, the Bison improve to 15-2 (2-0 NEVC) overall. With the losses, Russel Sage falls to 4-8 (0-1 NEVC) on the season, while Ramapo drops to 3-3 (1-0 Skyline).
Game #1 vs Russel Sage
In just their second in-conference matchup of the season, the Bison were led offensively by junior middle blocker
Dylan Knapp with six kills, two digs and one service ace. Freshman middle hitter
Bradyn Pomainville also turned in a six-kill performance, while hitting a notable .600 from the floor on 10 total attempts. Graduate utility
Carlos Mercado dished out a team-high 12 assists, while also adding in three digs. The Bison finished the match hitting .343 (34-11-67), as compared to Sage's .069 (21-16-72) clip.
The Bison immediately set the tempo in the first frame with a 14-6 lead over the Gators. Not long after, Knapp opened and closed a 5-0 Bison run with a kill and service ace to inflate their lead to 22-9, before
Bryce Bonville connected for a kill to bring the action to set point, 24-12. Nichols then claimed the winning point thanks to a final kill by
Jack Normandin.
Nichols rode the momentum into the second set and quickly gained a 9-2 lead. Despite a brief pushback by the Gators, the Bison charged forward with five unanswered points including Mercado's first kill and Bonville's only service ace of the afternoon, extended the lead to 15-6. The rest of the way, the Bison continued to receive a boost off of Sage errors, eventually claiming the set by a repeating 25-13 score on a service error.
Nichols emerged with an initial 4-0 lead in the third set, which later grew to 9-4. However, the Gators didn't make it easy for the Bison this time around, battling back to trail by just two points past the midway point, 13-11. Nichols regrouped with four of the next five points to pull back ahead by a 17-12 margin, which proved to be too much for the Gators as the Bison completed the sweep with a 25-21 win.
Game #2 vs Ramapo College
The Bison were paced in the closer by graduate outside hitter
Jack Normandin with a game-high 11 kills, along with four digs, two blocks and one service ace. Senior right side hitter
Tanner Soracco added nine kills on 12 attempts for a .667 hitting percentage, while graduate
Carlos Mercado repeated as the leader in assists with 22 in the effort. The Bison saw an improved hitting percentage as a team, finishing with a .379 clip (31-9-58) from the floor.
The first set started off as a very close battle that the Bison were eventually able to gain the upper hand on. With the score tied at 11-11, Nichols carved out a 12-5 run to take a 23-16 lead over the Roadrunners. A Ramapo attack error then placed the score at set point, before Normandin fired home a kill to win the set for the Bison, 25-18.
Ramapo started the second set with a 3-0 lead but failed to contain the Bison attack as the guests stormed back to lead 12-7. Through a back-and-forth midway point, the Roadrunners slowly narrowed the gap to trail the Bison by just two points, but Nichols later used a 4-0 run to place the score at set-point, 24-17. Normandin again had the final say, hammering home the winning kill for the Bison.
In the third set, Nichols doubled-up the score on the Roadrunners, 14-7. The lead only grew from there as the Bison rattled off five unanswered points behind kills from Knapp and Soracco to lead 19-8. The Bison went on to dominate the final set, completing the sweep on a Mercado kill by a score of 25-13.
Up next, the No. 12 Bison prepare for a ranked showdown at No. 4 Springfield College (13-1) on Wednesday, February 28
th at 7:00 PM.
