Box Score

 
NEWARK, NJ—NJIT men's volleyball sent its lone senior, Adam Gustafson, out in style, with a 3-1 upset win over Harvard, ranked 15th in the latest AVCA national Division I-II men's volleyball poll, Friday night in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center in Gustafson's last career home game.
 
The win for NJIT by scores of 25-21, 29-27, 23-25, and 25-22, lifted the Highlanders to 11-15 overall and 5-6 in the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association. Harvard, which entered the AVCA national rankings for the first time in program history this week, drops to 17-5 overall and 9-4 in the EIVA.
 
Gustafson, the versatile senior from Monee, IL, who is a biomedical engineering major enrolled in NJIT's Albert Dorman Honors College, has played multiple positions in his four-year career. On Friday, he was the setter for all four sets of the Harvard win, posting a match-best 49 assists. He also kept the Crimson off balance with seven kills in 11 attempts for a .636 hitting percentage.
 
The kills leaders for the Highlanders were Chris Kaepernick with 17 against just two errors in 40 swings (.375) and freshman TJ Jurko, who returned from a two-match injury layoff, notched 14 kills.
 
NJIT served five aces, led by three from Kevin Van Oss, to one for Harvard.
 
On defense, NJIT compiled 51 digs, led by a match-best 12 from libero Brady Smith, followed by Gustafson and Jurko, with 10 apiece.
 
Harvard had a 12-9 advantage in team blocking, with Doug Battersby (six block assists) and Gustafson (four block assists) pacing the Highlanders at the net.
 
Harvard lost despite a match-best 20 kills from senior Matt Jones, who is the career kills leader for the Crimson, with 1,186. Freshman DJ White, a two-year member of the USA Volleyball Boys Youth National Team, added 18 kills for the Crimson. Junior setter Rob Lothman notched 44 assists, while Michael Owen had the only service ace for Harvard.
 
Sophomore Chris Gibbons collected 11 digs, followed by 10 from Nick Madden. The blocking leader for Harvard was Will Chambers (2 solo, 5 assists). Madden added five blocks (2 solo, 3 assists).
 
The Crimson won 11 of 12 between February 18 and April 6, with the one loss coming on March 12 at Pepperdine (ranked sixth in the latest AVCA national poll). After the loss in California vs. Pepperdine, Harvard ran off five straight wins before dropping a 3-2 decision at Penn State, the pre-eminent men's volleyball team in the East and the only team from this part of the country ever to win the men's volleyball national championship. Penn State is ranked seventh team in the latest national poll.
 
One of the wins in the five-match Harvard streak that ended at Penn State on April 7 was a 3-0 defeat of the Highlanders when NJIT visited Cambridge, MA, on March 31.
 
That loss at Harvard was the beginning of a three-match skid for the Highlanders that continued with a 0-3 home loss to George Mason on April 6 and a 2-3 upset loss to Rutgers-Newark, a team NJIT had beaten twice already, just two days before Harvard came to town.
 
NJIT served notice in the first set that things would be different on this night, regardless of which team came out on top.
 
Trailing, 10-17, in the opening set, the Highlanders ran off seven straight points, sparked by two kills for Gustafson and two service aces for Van Oss. Harvard broke the seven-point NJIT run with a kill by Jones, but NJIT answered with a kill by Battersby, followed by two Crimson attack errors, the second on a block by Battersby and Jurko and the Highlanders led the rest of the set, clinching on a kill by Gustafson.
 
The second set went all the way to 29-27, with 16 ties and seven lead changes along the way. Again, NJIT came back from a deficit. Down 18-20, NJIT used a 3-0 run, but there would be ties at every point from 20 through 27. Indeed, the Highlanders, facing the loss of set point at 23-25, 24-25, 25-26, and 26-27, surged for the last three points of the set, the last two on kills by Jurko.
 
Harvard took the close third set, 25-23, going ahead to stay at 20-19 on a kill by White, whose five kills in the set helped offset seven kills by NJIT's German freshman, Kaepernick.
 
As was true all night, the fourth set was close, with 10 ties and neither team on top by more than two until a 3-0 spurt by NJIT made it 16-13, starting with a Harvard attack error and continuing with a kill for Van Oss and an ace for Kaepernick.
 
The Highlanders eventually stretched their lead to 19-14 on another Gustafson kill, but the Crimson answered with a 3-0 run of their own, prompting NJIT coach Ryan McNeil to call timeout. NJIT got five of the ensuing six points following the timeout for a 24-19 lead and after another 3-0 Harvard push, the Highlanders clinched the set and match on a kill by Kaepernick into the floor in the Crimson back row.
 
The Highlanders, who will play their remaining three regular season matches on the road, need to win all of them in order to qualify for the four-team EIVA postseason playoffs. The challenging road begins on Saturday night in Fairfax, VA, against George Mason, which was a 3-0 winner when the teams met at NJIT on April 6.