The New York University men's volleyball team, ranked #9 in the American Volleyball Coach Association (AVCA) Preseason Poll, picked up a season-opening 3-0 victory at California Lutheran University on Friday evening, January 22, in Thousand Oaks, CA. The match was the first of three for NYU at the Posada Royal Invitational at CLU.
"It was a really good team performance to start the season," said NYU Head Coach
Jose Pina. "We had a strong serving and hitting game that was complimented by good ball control for most of the match."
The Violets (1-0) defeated the Kingsmen (0-2) in straight sets (25-18, 25-16, 25-23) and led by as many as nine points in both the first and second sets before their two-point victory in the third.
"It was impressive how we recovered to win the third set after faltering a bit midway through," continued Pina. "We gave up a few leads and then fell down by three. [Cal Lutheran] served with 23 points, but we sided out and then took the next four points on our serve and finished the match strong."
Offensively, five NYU players notched at least five kills, led by eight apiece from outside hitters
Chase Klein and
Nick Benson. Klein also finished with five total blocks and two service aces to lead the Violets with 14.0 points.
HIGHLIGHTS:-
Derrick Chiu served as the primary setter for NYU and dished out a match-best 28 assists.
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Phil Bueno and
Stephen Tan each finished with six kills. Bueno also had a team-high-tying five digs.
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Chase Corbett finished with five kills and tied Bueno with five digs, as well.
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Benjamin Oxnard finished with four digs and an assist as the teams starting libero.
NYU will play two matches at the Posada Royale Invitational on Saturday, January 23. The Violets will begin with Lakeland College at 12:00 pm (PST), followed by a top-ranked meeting against #5 University of California-Santa Cruz at 2:30 pm (PST).
