Loretto, Pa- The Saint Francis men's volleyball team continues its break from conference play and heads to the Midwest for two matches against No. 15 Ball State on Friday, March 15th and No. 13 Purdue Fort Wayne on Saturday, March 16th.
 
Game Info.
Friday, Mar. 15 (7 p.m. ET)
at Ball State
Watch (ESPN+) | Live Stats
 
Saturday, Mar. 16 (7 p.m. ET)
at Purdue Fort Wayne
Watch | Live Stats | Listen
 
 
About the Cardinals
Ball State is 10-10, 3-4 MIVA, and is No. 15 in the AVCA Top 15 Coaches Poll. The Cardinals have wins over No. 10 Cal State Northridge, No. 12 Ohio State, and No. 13 George Mason this season. The Red Flash and Cardinals have played 11 common opponents, in which they are 7-5 and 8-3, respectively. Last weekend, the Cardinals traveled to Honolulu, Hawaii to compete in the Outrigger Tournament, hosted by Hawaii University. The team finished 1-2 on the weekend and was challenged against two top-10 opponents in No. 6 Pepperdine and No. 2 Hawaii. Ball State is led by Matt Szews and Kaleb Jenness who have 233 and 177 kills respectively. Szew also leads in two other categories, digs (109) and blocks (54).
 
Series History
The Cardinals and the Red Flash will face each other for the 21st time in program history. Long Beach State leads the all-time series 15-6.
 
About the Matadors
Purdue Fort Wayne, picked to finish fifth in the MIVA, has won three of its last six matches, despite dropping its last match 3-0 to No. 10 Lewis. The team's go-to attacker is outside hitter Pelegrin Vargas, whose 3.58 kills per set leads the team and ranks fourth in the conference. The 2018 All-MIVA honoree has 12 matches this year of double-digit kills and enters the weekend with the conference lead of 215 total kills. Directing the attack is setter Michael Keegan, who enters Saturday second in the conference in assists per set (9.32). His production has placed the Mastodons to the nation's 10th highest team assists per set average (11.83).
 
Series History
Purdue Fort Wayne and Saint Francis will meet for the 18th time in program history and the Matadors lead the all-time series 13-5. PFW won the last meeting 3-1 and SFU is looking for redemption and payback from its four set loss.
 
Road Warriors
It will be a busy rest of the season for the Red Flash, seven of their next nine games will be on the road, with five of those matches against EIVA opponents. The conference standings remain very close, so the five conference matches will be crucial for the seeding for the EIVA conference championships. Conference championships begin April 18^th and run through the 20th
 
Conference Standing

	Overall	Conference
Princeton	8-1	10-9
George Mason	6-2	12-4
Saint Francis	5-2	11-8
Penn State	5-2	8-10
Harvard	4-3	4-9
Sacred Heart	1-6	2-10
Charleston	1-7	7-13
NJIT	0-7	4-12

 
Leaders
Michael Fisher (Mechanicsburg, Pa./Cumberland Valley (Pepperdine)) is the leading scorer for the Red Flash with 4.83 kills per set on .346 hitting. He also adds 1.19 digs per set and 0.60 blocks per set. Patrick Bryan (Emmaus, Pa./Emmaus) is also a contributor to the Red Flash offense adding 158 kills on a 2.98 kills per set average. He also sits first on the team and fifth in the conference with a 0.36 service ace per set average.  BJ Blair (Bridgewater, NJ/Bridgewater Raritan) has managed the offense with 9.94 assists per set to go along with 1.36 digs per set and 0.49 blocks per set. Defensively, the Red Flash are paced by Gabe Woffindin's (Allentown, Pa./William Allen) 2.07 digs per set and Cole Carver (Hershey, Pa./Hershey)s's 1.12 blocks per set.

For all the latest on Saint Francis men's volleyball, follow @RedFlashMVB on social media and visit sfuathletics.com.