The New York University men's volleyball season came to end with a 3-1 loss to Cal Lutheran University in the NCAA Division III Tournament Elite 8 on Saturday, April 19, at the Violets' John A. Paulson Center in Manhattan.

Seeking to return to the Final Four for a second consecutive season, NYU came out of the gate strong with a 25-18 win in the first set, but the defending champion Kingsmen then rose to the occasion by sweeping the next three sets 25-22, 28-26, 25-20.

The loss was NYU's first of the season (26-1), having entered the Tournament as the top seed.

However, the Kingsmen (23-5), proved to be the better team on this night.

 "Two amazingly talented teams played tonight," said Head Coach Jose Pina. "One team advances and one team doesn't. We played well, but they played better."

The pivotal third set went back-and-forth. Both teams had opportunities to close it out, which Cal Lutheran finally did on Jordan Cooper's kill.

NYU fell behind 3-0 in the final set, but managed to grab a 10-9 lead. However, Cal Lutheran scored the next four points and stayed ahead the rest of the way.  

"They made a couple of tweaks after the first set and I don't think we played with the same emotion after that," Pina added.

Lucas Osiecki led NYU with 20 kills. Luke Boyer (14) and Emerson Evans (11) also compiled double-digits.

Devyn Nguyen totaled a match-high 51 assists, with Evans (12), Zach Knudsen (12) and Osiecki (11) each adding double-digit digs.

"It's a rough loss," Nguyen said. "Their serve and pass picked up tremendously in that second set and they put a lot of pressure on us. I think they wore us down." 

The Violets end the season with the most victories in program history.