The 11th-ranked New York University men's volleyball team battled #8 Rutgers University-Newark on Tuesday night, ultimately falling in three close sets (23-25, 24-26, 21-25) at the Brooklyn Athletic Facility.
"Tough match against a legit top-five team," said Head Coach
José Piña. "We were able to control the match on occasions, but trying to put pressure on a very good offensive team led to some ill-timed serving misses. We weren't as clean as we needed to be in order to beat a team of their caliber."
A back-and-forth opening set saw 10 ties and nine lead changes, but the Scarlet Raiders closed it with a 5-1 run to take an early advantage.
NYU jumped out to a 9-4 lead in the second but, with the Violets leading 12-8, Rutgers-Newark scored four straight to tie things up.
NYU mounted a 4-0 spurt of their own to regain momentum and maintained the edge for the next 13 serves, but RUN chipped away and eventually tied the score at 21 on an Andrew Zaleck kill. A tiebreaker ensued with the teams knotted at 24, then Zaleck finished it off with back-to-back kills.
Despite twice coming within a point late in the third, the Violets never led in the frame and suffered their third straight defeat.
BOX SCORE BREAKDOWN
- James Haag recorded a team-high seven kills while Gautham Dasari posted six with two digs and a block.
- Ryan Whealen (19) and Ryan Li (11) both dished out double-digit assists. Piña praised Li and rookie Buddy Cohen's play off the bench after the match.
- Cohen, Tyler Flood and Brian Kellogg all had four kills with Cohen hitting .800 on the night.
- Matthew Noel and Owen Wahlgren contributed three kills each with Noel adding a pair of blocks.
- Zaleck finished with a match-high 15 kills for the 12-2 Scarlet Raiders.
- Rutgers-Newark controlled the net, leading 10-4 in blocks and hitting .286 compared to NYU's .189.
NEXT UP
The Violets return to United Volleyball Conference (UVC) play when they travel to Rochester to face St. John Fisher College on Saturday, March 5, at 2 pm.
