NEWARK, NJ—NJIT, a point away from defeat, fought back to take four of the last five points of the match, pulling out a 3-2 women's volleyball victory against visiting Iona Tuesday night in the Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
With the exception of the first set, which NJIT took handily, 25-15, the match was nip-and-tuck, especially the last two sets. Iona leveled the contest at a set apiece with a 25-21 win in the second frame and NJIT won Set Three, 25-19. Iona came away with a 25-23 win in the fourth set, forcing a fifth and deciding set.
 
After leading the fifth set 10-6, the Highlanders dropped into a 13-14 hole, but came back to take two for a 15-14 lead. With a two-point margin required for a win, Iona did its own escape act, knotting the score at 15-15. But NJIT senior Fran Edmondson registered her match-best 20th kill for a 16-15 lead and then the home team got match point on a combined block by Edmondson and classmate Valerie Carroll.
 
The victory in the marathon two-hour, 15-minute match lifted NJIT's season record to 7-17, including 2-2 at home. The Highlanders will play five of their next six at home in the Fleisher Athletic Center. Iona drops to 5-17 after the hard-fought loss.
 
Edmondson, whose 20 kills were her season high, also had 12 digs on the defensive end for her third double-double of the season. Junior Danica Vukotic added 14 kills and Carroll notched a season-best 12 kills from the middle.
 
With NJIT piling up 61 kills on the night, freshman setter Alyssa Armada set a new personal-best with 53 assists, one more than she got against Providence in another five-set match on September 19.
 
The Highlanders held a slight edge in the serving game, with six aces to five for visiting Iona. Danica Vukotic and Katie Goswick each had a pair of aces.
 
On defense, five NJIT players reached double-figures in digs. Senior Camilla Tinari and Goswick, also a senior, each had 16 digs to lead the Highlanders on the floor. Armada and Edmondson had 12 digs apiece and Danica Vukotic came up with 10 digs, giving her an offense-defense double-double.
 
A big edge for the Highlanders came at the net, where they enjoyed a 13-to-8 lead in total team blocks, including the block by Edmondson and Carroll for match point.
 
Freshman Tess Albyn finished with 5 blocks (1 solo, 4 assists) and Carroll had 5 block assists. Edmondson added 4 blocks (2 block solo, 2 block assists) and Kat Janssen, another NJIT freshman, had 4 block assists.
 
Iona got 15 kills from senior Catrina Warren and 13 from classmate Shannon Ward. The Gaels used two setters, with junior Natalie Ziskin posting 35 assists and senior Caris Myles adding 13.
 
Katie Marabella served three of Iona's five aces and the senior produced a match-best 31 digs on defense, supported by Warren's 18 digs.
 
Karly White, a 6-foot-5 sophomore for the Gaels, posted a match-best 6 blocks (1 solo, 5 assisted) and another sophomore, Kate Brodnax added 4 block assists.
 
The Iona roster was filled with familiar faces to two of the NJIT coaches. Veteran head coach of the Highlanders, Peter Volkert, was an assistant coach with the Gaels in 2013 and one of his NJIT assistant coaches, Alicja Pawelec, graduated from Iona in May 2014 after completing a stellar academic and playing career at the New Rochelle, NY, college.
 
Enrolled in Iona's Honors Program, she graduated with a degree in biology and a GPA above 3.5. On the court, she was a four-year starter and was a two-time All-Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference second-team honoree. Some of that inside knowledge must have served the Highlanders well in a match that was contested so closely, with 31 ties and 11 lead changes over the course of five sets.
 
NJIT went ahead to stay in the first set at 7-6 and extended to 20-10 before trading points on the way to a comfortable 25-15 victory, with the senior Goswick serving aces for the last two points of the set.
 
Warren led Iona to a second-set 25-21 win, as she notched 7 kills on 12 swings with a single error. The Gaels built a 14-8 lead, but the Highlanders fought back to tie at 18 apiece before three straight kills, two by Warren, put the Gaels on the path to winning the set.
 
The Gaels went ahead late in the third set, as well, going up 17-16 on a Kassandra Darnaby kill. But NJIT won the next four points with Edmondson serving the last three to take control of a frame it won, 25-19.
 
Iona stayed alive with a 25-23 fourth-set win, but it wasn't easy for the Gaels. Ahead 15-9, they were poised to claim a relatively easy win. However, the Highlanders fought back and pulled to within a point late on three different occasions—21-22, 22-23, and 23-24, but Ward finally settled it with a kill for set point and a 25-23 win for the visitors.
 
Fifth sets are typically won on 15 points, but this match called for more to reach a decision. The Highlanders broke a 3-3 tie with three unanswered points, two kills by Edmondson sandwiched around her block solo.
 
After eventually building a 10-6 lead, the Highlanders won, but not without a fight from Iona, with four ties from 12-12 on to 17-15.
 
Next on the schedule for NJIT is another home match, Friday at 7 pm in the Fleisher Athletic Center against Delaware State. The contest will feature "Dig Pink" with a donation bucket at the front entrance in support of breast cancer awareness and giveaways of pink NJIT women's volleyball t-shirts.