Box Score
 
NEWARK, NJ—Freshman TJ Jurko notched a match-best 14 kills, leading NJIT to a 3-1 win over visiting Saint Francis Saturday afternoon in a key Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association match in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
The set scores for the victorious Highlanders were: 18-25, 25-20, 25-18, and 25-23.
 
The win for NJIT, its first since March 8, 2008 against the visitors from Loretto, PA, lifts the Highlanders to 4-3 in the EIVA this season, while Saint Francis is 5-4 in league play. Since the 3-0 win by NJIT in 2008, the Red Flash had won six straight matches against the Highlanders, including 3-1 last month in Loretto. Overall, NJIT is 9-12 on the season, while Saint Francis drops to 10-12.
 
Jurko, who missed three matches with an ankle injury, returned Friday night in a 3-1 loss to Penn State, ranked eighth nationally, and had a strong showing in the win over Saint Francis, posting his 14 kills on 26 swings, with six errors, for a .308 hitting percentage.
 
Sophomore Herman Kantushov was also strong on the attack for the Highlanders, posting a .350 hitting percentage (10 kills, 3 errors, 20 attempts) and Doug Battersby had five kills and two errors on 11 attempts (.273).
 
Senior Adam Gustafson led NJIT in assists, with 37, and also had three kills in four attempts. Kevin Van Oss was NJIT's leader in service aces, with two of the five for the Highlanders team.
 
Junior libero Brady Smith posted a match-best 11 digs to lead the Highlander defense on the floor and Van Oss was the blocks leader, with six (2 solo, 4 assists).
 
The kills leader for Saint Francis was junior Adam Roche, who finished with nine. He had four errors and 16 attempts for a .312 hitting percentage. The team hitting percentage for the Red Flash was .167, compared to .253 for NJIT.
 
Senior Ryan Williams led the visitors with 37 assists, tying NJIT's Gustafson for match honors, while five different players served one ace apiece for the Red Flash.
 
The team digs totals favored NJIT, 32-20, and Williams and Logan Patterson were the individual leaders for Saint Francis, with four each.
 
Saint Francis held a slim 9.5-to-9 team blocking edge, headed by six individual blocks for Roche, who had one solo and five assisted. Williams and Alex Kane each had four block assists.
 
Kyle Beatty, who finished the day with six kills total, got four of them in the first set, as Saint Francis won comfortably, 25-18. The Highlanders got the first point, but never led again and trailed from 2-3 on. Leading, 7-5, the Red Flash took control with a 5-0 spurt and extended its advantage to 21-13 before easing the rest of the way to the seven-point win.
 
The second set, won by NJIT, 25-20, had 10 ties and seven lead changes, but Saint Francis was hurt by 16 errors, including nine attack errors, four of which were blocked by the Highlanders. The visitors had a .031 hitting percentage, with 10 kills and nine errors on 32 attempts.
 
The Highlanders finally broke ahead to stay at 16-15 on a kill by Kantushov and another kill for Chris Kaepernick made it 17-15. The lead fluctuated between one and two points until back-to-back Saint Francis hitting errors put NJIT on top, 23-19. After a Highlander service error, they closed with a kill by Kaepernick and an ace by Van Oss.
 
NJIT gained the lead in sets with its strongest hitting frame in the third (.381 on 11 kills, 3 errors, 21 attempts) for a 25-18 win and a 2-1 lead in sets. The Highlanders, who never trailed, held a 19-18 advantage when they ran off six straight points, as Jurko's kill clinched the set.
 
The fourth set, won 25-23 by the Highlanders, was the closest of the day. Saint Francis went up 8-5 after a kill by Adam Barba and still led by three, 11-8, when NJIT ran off three points in a row for an 11-11 tie.
 
Barba notched another kill to put the Red Flash ahead by a point, but the Highlanders spurted for four straight, with the 7-1 spurt putting them up, 15-12, after Gustafson and Van Oss combined to block Patterson.
 
Saint Francis hung in, however, and there were later ties at 21-21 and 22-22, before Jurko's kill put the Highlanders ahead to stay, 23-22. Battersby and Ryan Thomas then blocked SFU's Barba to make it 24-22. Patterson staved off match point for the Red Flash with a kill, but Jurko put down a kill to clinch the win for the Highlanders on the next point.
 
The next action for NJIT is a non-conference home contest against Limestone on Thursday at 7 pm in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center. Limestone, from Gaffney, SC, plays in Conference Carolinas, which also includes past NJIT men's volleyball foes Lees-McRae, King, Mt. Olive, and Pfeiffer.