With a 3-0 sweep at Cairn Friday night, EMU's volleyball men clinched their first-ever spot in the Continental Volleyball Conference Tournament.

The No. 11 Royals improve to 9-3 in the CVC and maintain their position in second place. The top four teams make the postseason tournament, which will be April 14 and 15 at Marymount University in Arlington, Va. The Saints clinched the top seed Friday with a 3-1 win at Rutgers-Newark.

At 20-8 overall, Eastern Mennonite also notches just the second 20-win season in program history. The 2007 team finished 22-11. Now in the sixth year of the CVC's existence, the Royals have never earned more than five conference wins in a season before this year.

The men will look to continue their momentum on Saturday, playing a 2:00pm match at Rutgers-Newark.

Against Cairn (3-24/0-10 CVC), EMU was in firm control, scoring the first five points of the night. They closed the first set on another 5-0 run, winning 25-12. The Highlanders stayed a little closer in the other sets, but senior Scott Brigham (Montpelier, Va./Patrick Henry) finished out the second with an ace in a 25-21 win, and the third with a kill for a 25-17 clincher.

EMU hit .256 as a team, led by 30 assists from Christian Taylor (Richmond, Va./Deep Run). Brigham had a team high 12 kills with a pair of blocks. Tim Callahan (Harrisburg, Pa./Central Dauphin) had 11 kills and two aces.

Defensively, Dan Lutz (Greencastle, Pa./Greencastle-Antrim) racked up four blocks to lead all players and libero Colton Frey (Lancaster, Pa./Hempfield) picked up seven digs.

Andy Willits led Cairn with 16 kills.