Box Score


NEWARK, NJ—Visiting Rutgers-Newark fought back from a two sets-to-one deficit to take the final two sets and defeat NJIT, 3-2 (25-21, 14-25, 23-25, 27-25, 15-13) in Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association action Wednesday night in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
Rutgers-Newark, which is reclassifying men's volleyball to align that sport in Division III along with the rest of its intercollegiate programs, snapped a 10-match EIVA losing streak by defeating the Highlanders.
 
Rutgers-Newark, which won its opening EIVA match this season against Sacred Heart before losing the next 10, is now 2-10 in the EIVA, which is comprised of seven other Division I programs, including NJIT. The Scarlet Raiders are 10-13 overall.
 
NJIT is 4-6 in the EIVA and 10-15 overall. The Highlanders had played Rutgers-Newark twice this season at Rutgers and won both matches—3-0 on January 21 in a non-conference match in R-N's Golden Dome Invitational and 3-1 in the first EIVA meeting on February 15.
 
On Wednesday night, the Rutgers-Newark attack was led by two of its remaining Division I players, seniors Austin Pappas (21 kills) and Grant Metheny (16 kills). Freshman setter Manuel Felipez handed out a match-best 49 assists.
 
The Scarlet Raiders dominated the serving game, with a 9-3 advantage over the Highlanders in aces, with four served by Pappas and two apiece from Felipez and Parth Vedawala, a surprise starter.
 
Vedawala, a senior, had played for the Scarlet Raiders from 2009 through 2011, but was not on the team this season until earlier this week. Dressing for his first match, he joined the starting lineup when junior Brett Pickens was injured in pre-match warmups. Vedawala also had two kills without an error on the attack and five block assists.
 
The team blocking was even at 10 apiece and the Rutgers-Newark leaders were Vedawala and Felipez (1 block solo, 4 block assists). Metheny had two block solos and a block assist.
 
On the floor, R-N got 11 digs from Metheny and eight from senior libero Zack Chambers.
 
NJIT put three hitters in double-figures in the kills column, led by junior Andrei Stoyanow's 12. Sophomore Herman Kantushov, who entered the match early in the fourth set and went the rest of the way, had 11 kills and only two errors in 25 swings (.360 hitting percentage). Freshman Ryan Thomas added 10 kills for the Highlanders.
 
Kevin Van Oss and Doug Battersby didn't reach double-figures in kills, but they both had high hitting percentages. Van Oss had nine kills and no errors in 14 hits for a .643 hitting percentage and Battersby's was .429, with eight kills and two errors in 14 tries.
 
NJIT coach Ryan McNeil called on three different setters for significant stretches. Senior Adam Gustafson started and notched 25 assists in four sets. Freshman Zak Robben played two sets and was credited with 19 assists, and junior Matthew Lui made his first appearance of the night in the fifth set and went the distance in that frame, collecting three assists.
 
The three Highlander aces came from three different players—Gustafson, Stoyanow, and Kantushov.
 
On defense, junior libero Brady Smith led the way on the floor, sharing match honors with 11 digs, followed by Thomas' six. The individual blocking leader for the Highlanders was Battersby, with a match-best six (1 solo, 5 assisted).
 
Rutgers-Newark, with individual points totaling 72, held a 72-64 edge over the Highlanders in that area, topped by 25.5 from Pappas and 18.5 from Metheny. But the Scarlet Raiders made a high number of errors, including 34 in the attack (24 unforced), 21 on serves and three on blocks. NJIT was better, but had a lot of errors in its own right, with 21 attack errors, 17 service errors, two blocking errors, and a ball handling error. The errors total, not including receiving errors on serve, were 58 by R-N and 41 by NJIT.
 
There were 11 ties in the first set up to 14-14, but Rutgers-Newark used a 5-0 run, keyed by a service ace and four NJIT attack errors (two blocked, two unforced) to take control, 19-14. NJIT never got closer than three the rest of the way in the opening set.
 
The Highlanders dominated the second set, hitting 10 kills with just two errors in 18 attempts (.444) and notching three blocks for an easy 25-14 win to pull even in sets.
 
NJIT went up 2-1 in sets with a hard-fought 25-23 victory in the third, paced by Kantushov (6 kills, 0 errors, 10 attempts, .600) and Battersby (4 kills, 0 errors, 5 attempts, .800). Rutgers-Newark also hit well (.387 as a team), with seven kills for Metheny and five for Pappas. There were 13 ties, the last at 23-23, before a Battersby kill and the only attack error of the set for R-N's Pappas sealed the deal for the Highlanders.
 
With the fourth set tied 12-12, the Raiders ran off four straight points and still led, 23-20, before NJIT went on a 4-0 run, the last three points in the spurt coming with Kantushov serving. The Highlanders, up 24-23 after rallying, could not get the elusive set and match point, however, and it would end up costing them the match later on.
 
Metheny notched a kill to level the score at 24-24 and then he and Lorenzo Samin combined on a block to make it 25-24 for the visitors. However, Battersby's kill pulled NJIT into a 25-25 tie before Marcin Midura and Samin clinched the set with consecutive kills for Rutgers-Newark.
 
The deciding fifth set saw Rutgers-Newark jump to a 6-2 lead before the Highlanders used a 6-2 run of their own to tie the score at 8-8. There would be subsequent ties at 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13, before Pappas killed the 14th point for his team and an NJIT error gave the 15th point, the set, and the match to the Scarlet Raiders.
 
NJIT will close the home portion of its season on Friday night with a 7 pm EIVA match against Harvard, which entered the national Top 15 with this week's AVCA coaches' Division I-II poll. The Crimson were 3-0 winners over NJIT when the team's met in Cambridge, MA, on March 31.
 
Friday's match in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center will be Senior Night, with pre-match ceremonies recognizing the career of captain Adam Gustafson, the only fourth-year member of the 2012 Highlanders.