NAPERVILLE, Ill. – The Carthage College Red Men topped to the North Central Cardinals on the road on Saturday, 3-1 [25-14, 25-21, 23-25, 25-23], setting up the highly anticipated match on Friday with the Dominican University Stars for the outright regular season Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League title.
 
The win put the Red Men at 20-1 overall in 2017 and 17-0 in the Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League, while North Central falls to 16-8 and 10-6 in the MCVL.
 
As a team the Red Men hit .323 percent in the four-set win in Gregory Arena to the Cardinals' .245.
 
Making his first career start, setter Jacob Allard led the Red Men with a match-high 48 assists.  Griffin Shields was on the receiving end of most of Allards sets, tallying 19 kills to lead all players followed by Max Bongratz with 12 and Zach Lillig with ten.  Bongratz led the Red Men with a .733 attack percentage, converting his 12 kills on 19 attacks and just one error.
 
Cody Bolan led the Red Men once again at libero with 11 digs, while Zach Lillig recorded four blocks at the net.
 
The Red Men return to action in the biggest game of the season on Friday as Carthage hosts Dominican University at Tarble Arena at 7:00 p.m.  Should the Red Men win, Carthage would win the outright regular season MCVL title and the right to host the 2017 MCVL Tournament as the top seed.  A loss would mean the Red Men would have to win on Saturday to earn at least a share of the MCVL title and the Stars would hold the tiebreaker for the right to host.
 
Friday's match will be a 'Red Out' so all Carthage fans are asked to wear red to support the Red Men.