Box Score


NEWARK, NJ—The NJIT men's volleyball team sent its seven seniors out on a high note Tuesday night, sweeping neighborhood rival Rutgers-Newark, 25-18, 25-14, and 25-18, in Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association action in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
NJIT, which will play its five remaining matches, all EIVA contests, away from home, raised its league record to 2-7, while moving to 5-18 overall. Rutgers-Newark falls to 0-9 in the EIVA and 2-14 overall.
 
NJIT coach Ryan McNeil was able to find playing time for 14 players Tuesday night, with only seniors Herman Kantushov, Brady Smith, and Doug Battersby seeing action in all three sets.
 
With the Highlanders hitting for a team attack percentage of .405 (39 kills, 9 errors, 74 attempts), Battersby led the way, notching eight kills and one error in 15 swings (.467 attack pct.). In addition, Kantushov, sophomore Chris Kaepernick, sophomore Kajetan Borecki, and junior Dhruv Lad all added five kills apiece to the NJIT attack.
 
Senior setter Matthew Lui compiled 20 assists in two sets of action, while sophomore Zak Robben posted 12 assists in his one set of play. Kantushov, senior Kevin Van Oss, Battersby, and senior Andrei Stoyanow each had a service ace, as NJIT won that category, 4-0.
 
On defense, Brady Smith, the 2012 national leader in digs per set, came up with a match-best 11 digs in his final career home contest. With the Highlanders holding a 9-5 advantage in team blocks, Battersby finished with a match-leading four block assists.
 
Rutgers-Newark, which had been the only school in the country that had NCAA Division I men's volleyball while its other sports competed in Division III, is in the process of transitioning men's volleyball to Division II, which had its first NCAA-sponsored Division III championship in 2012 (previously programs from all three NCAA levels competed for one national championship; now, the NCAA sponsors two volleyball championships—Division III and Division I and II combined).
 
The Scarlet Raiders, coached by 2001 NJIT graduate Pedro Trevino, who played on some of the best men's volleyball teams in school history, has an exceptionally young roster, with one sophomore and 11 freshmen.
 
The sophomore, Manuel Felipez, led Rutgers-Newark with a match-best 11 kills, while Adrian Lopez, a fellow resident of Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, logged 16 assists. Kevin McCandless, added 10 assists for the Scarlet Raiders. Cody Chidsey, with a block solo and a block assist, led R-N in individual blocks. Felipez and Colin Ferguson shared the team lead with five digs each.
 
After falling behind 1-3 early in the first set, NJIT went ahead to stay at 9-8 and its seven-point lead at the end of the 25-18 set was its highest. The Highlanders never trailed the second set, scoring five of the first six points and leading by as many as 12 points, 23-11, and by at least 10 from 20-10 on. In the clinching set, NJIT went ahead for good at 4-3 and led by a high of seven points on four occasions, including the 25-18 final.
 
The seven seniors honored in pre-match ceremonies were: Kantushov, Lui, Stoyanow, Smith, Van Oss, Battersby, and Ryan Blondell. Lui and Smith, both from Hawai'i, were each accompanied by their parents, who made the long trip to New Jersey to see their sons play.
 
NJIT begins its run of five April away games with one of the shortest trips in college sports, as the Highlanders will head down Warren Street to visit Rutgers-Newark on Friday, April 5 at 7 pm.