Box score
NEWARK, NJ—Visiting King College came back from the brink of defeat to edge NJIT in a five-set non-conference men's volleyball match Thursday night in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
King, which is located in Bristol, Tennessee, and was a first-time opponent for the Highlanders, won the first set, 30-24, but faced defeat when NJIT won the next two sets, 30-27 and 30-26. However, the Tornado forced the match to the limit, winning the fourth set, 30-21, and then taking a 21-19 win in the fifth set to claim the match.
NJIT either led or was tied in the deciding set until King ran off three straight points to shift the score from 10-9, NJIT, to 12-10, King. The Highlanders recovered and were looking at match point with a 14-13 lead, but could not close the deal, due to a service error.
With a team needing a two-point advantage to claim the set, the teams went back and forth to 19-19, before the Tornado got a kill from James Friddle for the 20th point and a block from Friddle and Eric Glenn to clinch the match at 21-19.
The hitting error into the King block on the deciding point was the 56th of the match for the Highlanders, all but negating their 62 kills. By comparison, victorious King had 58 kills and 37 attack errors, which is not especially good, but much better than the numbers for NJIT.
Many of NJIT's attack errors came on hits into King blocks, as the Tornado compiled 26.5 team blocks—10 more than NJIT's 16.5, which was also a substantial number.
NJIT's kills leaders were Christian Puszies, who finished with 26, and Kevin Van Oss, who notched 17.
Adam Gustafson collected 37 assists for the Highlanders, while Matthew Lui had 20 assists.
Doug Battersby was the NJIT blocking leader, with 10 (1 block solo, 9 block assists) and Gustafson had six blocks and 16 digs.
Brady Smith had a match-best 20 digs for the Highlanders.
For King, James Friddle, who was part of the last two match-clinching points, had 12 kills and seven blocks. Michael Koebel had 12 kills and nine blocks, while Ariel Apolinario notched 11 kills and a match-best 12 blocks (3 solo, 9 assisted).
Apolinario and Morris Cephas each posted 15 digs for the Tornado and Joel Salva was credited with 47 assists.
Both teams struggled in the serving game. King had three aces, but handed 20 points to NJIT on service errors, and the Highlanders weren't much better, with two aces and 16 errors.
NJIT will take a weekend trip to upstate New York, visiting Nazareth in Rochester, NY, for a 7 pm match on Friday and then D'Youville in Buffalo, NY, on Saturday at 1 pm.
