Box score

NEWARK, NJ—NJIT took its second match in two days at the Golden Dome Invitational, sweeping host Rutgers-Newark, 3-0 (25-19, 25-17, and 25-16) Saturday evening in the Scarlet Raiders' annual men's volleyball tournament.
 
NJIT opened the season last week by traveling over 2,000 miles to Phoenix, Arizona, where the Highlanders lost twice to host Grand Canyon College and once to UC San Diego in three matches held January 13 and 14. This weekend, they went a few hundred yards down Warren Street in Newark and picked up a 3-0 win over Hunter on Friday night and followed with Saturday's 3-0 win over Rutgers-Newark.
 
The double wins in the Golden Dome Invitational raise NJIT to 2-3 on the season, while Rutgers-Newark is 1-1. The Scarlet Raiders had defeated New York University on Friday night, 3-2. NYU, in turn, downed Hunter, 3-1, in Saturday's other matchup.
 
The Highlanders featured an effective, balanced offense in dispatching their neighborhood rivals. NJIT posted a team hitting percentage of .354 (35 kills, 7 errors, 79 total attempts) and had five different players with at least five kills, topped by freshman TJ Jurko's nine kills.
 
In addition to Jurko, the Highlanders got seven kills apiece from Herman Kantushov and Doug Battersby, plus six kills from Kevin Van Oss and five from Adam Gustafson, the team's only senior.
 
Neither Battersby nor Van Oss committed an attack error and Battersby's seven kills came on just 10 swings and Van Oss got his six kills on nine attempts.
 
Jurko, the freshman from Florida, accounted for a team-leading 13 points, serving three aces and picking up two block assists to go with his nine kills. Jurko's three aces and two from Gustafson led the Highlanders to an 8-0 advantage in that category, a result made even more impressive by the fact that Rutgers-Newark senior Austin Pappas was the national Division I leader for service aces per set in 2011.
 
Another NJIT rookie, Zak Robben, a setter from St. Louis, Missouri, triggered the Highlander offense with 27 assists.
 
Junior libero Brady Smith led the NJIT defense on the floor with a match-best 12 digs, Battersby was the individual blocking leader, with a block solo and three block assists for the Highlanders, who held a 7.5-to-4 advantage in team blocks.
 
On the other side, Pappas accounted for more than half his team's kills, notching a match-best 20 kills out of the Raiders' team total of 38. Marcin Mardura added nine kills.
 
Rutgers-Newark setter Manuel Felipez collected a match-best 31 assists. On defense, Zack Chambers had nine digs to pace the Raiders, while Felipez and James Webster each had three block assists to lead the host team at the net.
 
NJIT took an early 4-1 lead in the opening set, but there would be six ties and four lead changes, the last one at 14-13 on a kill for Jurko. That point began an 8-2 spurt that included two 4-0 runs that gave the upper hand to the Highlanders, who led by at least five once they reached the 20-point mark.
 
The next two sets went even better for the Highlanders, who never trailed the rest of the night. NJIT opened the second set at 8-1 and led by at least six points the rest of the way to the 25-17 win in the middle frame. The Highlanders opened the clinching set at 12-5 and never allowed Rutgers-Newark more than two points in a row en route to the 25-16 victory.
 
Saturday's win was the first of three matches this season between NJIT and Rutgers-Newark, who will play home-and-home as part of the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association schedule, with the Highlanders going back to R-N on February 15 and the Scarlet Raiders coming up the hill to NJIT on April 11.
 
Saturday's match was the first for NJIT against Pedro Trevino, the first-year Rutgers-Newark head coach. Trevino, a 2001 NJIT graduate who is also pursuing a master's degree from the school, was a four-year starting setter on some of the finest Highlander teams in a career that ran from 1997 to 2000. He played on teams that won two EIVA Division II titles and lost in the EIVA finals, 3-2, to perennial power Penn State one season. Trevino, who coached as an assistant at Kean University in 2011, was announced as an assistant at NJIT before the opportunity arose last September for him to become head coach at Rutgers-Newark.  
 
NJIT, which has played its first five 2012 matches on the road, will open the home portion of the schedule on Saturday, January 28 at 7 pm in a non-conference match against Lees-McRae in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.