The men's volleyball team split a Great Northeast Athletic Conference tri-match with Lasell and Emmanuel on Saturday afternoon at the Wildcat Center. JWU won the first match of the day in thrilling fashion over Lasell 3-2 (25-27, 23-25, 25-23, 25-23, 15-11). Emmanuel won the middle match over the Lasers 3-0 (27-25, 25-16, 25-19) before topping the host Wildcats 3-0 (25-19, 25-22, 25-21) in the final match of the day.

In the first match of the day, Lasell jumped out to a two set lead before the Wildcats stormed back to win in five sets. The Wildcats were led by junior Shawn Kennedy (West Barnstable, Mass.) who recorded a game-high 20 kills and four solo blocks while transfer Matt Jenkins (Damascus, Md.) and sophomore Don Dias (Scituate, R.I.) each had 11 kills for JWU.  Sophomore Dan Raffol (Natick, Mass.) paced the Lasers with 18 kills and nine digs. 

After being pushed to a 27-25 victory in set one, the Saints went on to win the next two en route to the 3-0 win against Lasell.  Freshman Julian Hess (Santa Monica, Calif.) led the charge for Emmanuel with ten kills while senior Nick Updike (Manhattan Beach, Calif.) collected 33 assists and five digs in the match. Raffol led Lasell with 11 kills and three digs. Freshman Ryan Jackson (Massillon, Ohio) picked up 19 assists in the setback for the Lasers.

The day wrapped up with a 3-0 win for Emmanuel over host Johnson & Wales. The Saints had four players with eight kills or more in the match including Zach Whitermore (Whitehall, Pa.) who served four aces and picked up three digs. The Wildcats were again paced by Kennedy with 12 kills and nine digs. Sophomore J.J. Bessette (Coventry, R.I.) had 31 assists in the setback for JWU.

Johnson & Wales is now 8-13 overall and 5-4 in the GNAC while Emmanuel improves to 11-12 and 5-1 in conference play. Lasell falls to 10-9 on the season and 3-3 in league play. The Wildcats will return to action on Tuesday, March 26th when they travel to Albertus Magnus for a Great Northeast Athletic Conference contest at 7:00 p.m.