Box Score
HUNTINGDON, PA—NJIT lost its second Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association Tait Division match in as many days, falling at Juniata, 3-1, Saturday night in the opening weekend of conference play.
The Highlanders, 3-3 overall, won the second set, but fell to the Eagles in the other three sets. The scores were 30-21, 27-30, 30-22 and 30-24 for Juniata.
The Eagles are 4-2 overall and 2-1 in the Tait Division, with their lone Tait loss coming against defending national champion Penn State.
NJIT had lost its EIVA divisional opener at Saint Francis (PA), 3-0 (30-28, 30-27, 30-25) on Friday night in Loretto, PA.
Juniata, which hit an impressive .404 as a team with 73 kills and just 18 errors in 136 swings, got 22 kills from junior Zach Wanner, while senior Dan Powers added 17 kills and Chris Vrooman checked in with 14 kills.
Juniata senior setter Matt Werle finished with 57 assists. On defense, Anthony Damiano had 13 digs and Wanner and Powers had three blocks apiece.
Senior Amobi Armstrong paced the NJIT attack with 19 kills, followed by Charles Bell (13 kills) and freshman Glen DeMagalhaes (10). Robert Thomas generated a .533 hitting percentage, with nine kills and only one error in 15 tries.
Rodrigo Correa notched 55 assists for the Highlanders. DeMagalhaes picked up a match-best 14 digs, while Thomas and Correa had three blocks apiece for the Highlanders.
Juniata set the tone for the match with a strong first set led by a .603 team hitting percentage that included 21 kills and just two errors in the attack. That near-flawless effort for the Eagles more than offset NJIT's most efficient hitting set of the match (14 kills, 3 errors, 27 attacks, .407 percentage). Evan Halteman led Juniata's attack, picking up five of his seven kills for the match in the first set alone.
The set was tied, 11-11, but Juniata took control with a 6-1 run and went on to win, comfortably, 30-21,
For NJIT, Correa had 18 of his assists in the second set, as the Highlanders evened the match with a 30-27 win. Thomas put NJIT on top, 17-16, with a kill and the Highlanders then gradually worked their way to 30.
But Powers had five kills to lead Juniata, which went ahead at 8-7 on a Highlander service error and never looked back on the way to a 30-22 third-set win and then Wanner produced eight of his match-best 22 kills in the fourth set, as the Eagles clinched the win.
NJIT had similar results on its Saint Francis/Juniata weekend last season, falling to the two Pennsylvania schools by identical 3-2 scores on February 22 and 23, 2008, respectively. Those results left NJIT at 1-4 in the EIVA Tait, but the Highlanders came back to make the EIVA playoffs, where they advanced to the semifinals before losing 3-2 to nationally-ranked George Mason.
The Highlanders, who play their next four matches at home, will host Springfield in another EIVA Tait Division matchup on Tuesday at 7 pm in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
