Box score
STOCKTON, CA--Pacific scored its second men's volleyball win in as many days over visiting NJIT, defeating the Highlanders, 3-0 (30-19, 30-26, 30-26), Saturday night in the Alex G Spanos Center.
Pacific, which plays in the nation's strongest men's volleyball conference, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, remained undefeated in non-conference play with its back-to-back wins over the Highlanders on Friday and Saturday.
The first set was an easy win for the Tigers, who never trailed, but the Highlanders became progressively more competitive as the match progressed, with eight ties and three lead changes in the second set and then 15 lead changes and three ties in the third set.
The key statistics in the Pacific win Saturday came in the attack and in blocking and the two statistics were linked. NJIT had twice as many attack errors as Pacific (22-to-11) and of the 22 NJIT errors, 14 were the result of Pacific blocks. NJIT had five blocks, which accounted for slightly less than half of the Pacific attack errors. Not surprisingly, the Tigers were much more efficient than the Highlanders, posting a team attack percentage of .434 compared to .110 for NJIT.
Pacific's two leading attackers in terms of kills were also extremely efficient. Florian Gornik had a match-best 20 kills and only two attack errors to post a .581 attack percentage, while Nikola Vukicevic had just one attack error and 13 kills in just 15 swings for a .800 attack percentage,
Setter Patrick Tunnell logged 44 assists for the Tigers, while Vukicevic notched two of his team's four service aces and also led the way at the net, with nine block assists. Gornik had six digs to pace the Pacific defense on the floor.
NJIT's attack leader was Christian Puszies, who had 15 kills, and the freshman also had two service aces. Freshman setter Matthew Lui picked up a team-leading 27 assists, plus a match-best three aces, leading NJIT to a 7-4 advantage in that category.
Two other freshmen were the defensive leaders for NJIT, as well. Brady Smith had a match-best 12 digs, while Lui had eight. And Doug Battersby was the top blocker for NJIT with three. He had two block assists plus the only block solo for either side. Yet another freshman, Kevin Van Oss, accounted for 10 points, posting eight kills, an ace, and two block assists (each worth half a point).
The Highlanders will play next on Wednesday, when they host Stevens in a non-conference match on Wednesday at 7 pm in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center. That will be the final home match of the 2010 season.
