Box Score


NEWARK, NJ—Two noteworthy streaks ended Saturday night in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center when NJIT dropped the opening set, but roared back to take the next three sets and top a quality visiting Lees-McRae squad in non-conference men's volleyball.
 
NJIT, now 5-5, after halting a four-match slide, lost 21-25 in a first set that wasn't as close the score looked. But the Highlanders regrouped and took the next three frames, 25-19, 25-17, and 25-17, sending Lees-McRae's overall to 9-5 and snapping the Bobcats' match winning streak at five in a row.
 
The balanced attack for the Highlanders included four men with double-figures in kills, led by Kajetan Borecki (13 kills), followed closely by Jabarry Goodridge and Ryan Thomas (11 kills apiece) and TJ Jurko (10 kills). Borecki's 13 kills came without an error (.542 attack pct.) and Thomas had just one error in 16 swings to go with his 11 kills (.625). Goodridge had only 3 errors and a .400 hitting percentage.
 
Lees-McRae lost despite getting a match-best 20 kills from sophomore Brady Markle. However, he also had 10 attack errors, nearly as much as the whole NJIT team's 13. John Sobel, a freshman from Long Island, was second in the Bobcat attack with 8 kills.
 
NJIT used two setters, with Zak Robben handling most of the duties and collecting 35 assists. Freshman Luke Robbe, seven inches taller than the 6-footer Robben, would come on near the close of each set, offering a different look to the other side.
 
Lees-McRae senior Randy Ramirez led all players with 39 assists and also served two of his team's four aces.  On the NJIT side, Goodridge and Thomas each notched a pair of service aces.
 
On defense, Bobcat senior libero Efrain Negron, like Ramirez and Gabriel Rivera, who did not play, a product of Puerto Rico managed a match-high 12 digs, one more than NJIT's Borecki, who had a strong two-way match with the offense/defense double-double (13 kills/11 digs).
 
NJIT, which was dominated in the blocking area in its previous three contests, all losses, turned the table against Lees-McRae, as the Highlanders posted an 11.5-to-5,5 edge in team blocks Saturday. Before that, NJIT lost at the net at Penn State (11-3); at Saint Francis, PA (14.5-7), and at George Mason (12.5-2).
 
Raphael Anthony of NJIT had a match-high 6 blocks (all assisted), with 5 blocks (1 solo, 4 assisted) for Robben and 4 block assists for Thomas. Ramirez and Josh Cothron each collected 3 block assists for Lees-McRae.
 
NJIT's balance was reflected in the individual points total (kills, aces, blocks), led by Thomas (15) and followed by Goodridge and Borecki (14.5 each) and Jurko (10). Markle accounted for 20 Bobcat points.
 
Thing did not look great early for NJIT, which had gone 3-1 to open the season, but then dropped four straight matches, all on the road, in its Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association and drop to 4-5 overall. The most recent loss was 3-0 at EIVA foe George Mason in Fairfax, VA, on Friday night.
 
Lees-McRae, which took both ends of a non-league home-and-home from the Highlanders in 2013, came in riding a winning streak that reached five with a 3-0 sweep against Rutgers-Newark Friday night down the hill on Warren Street. In effect, Lees-McRae, despite coming up from its home in Banner Elk, NC, slept comfortably in the Newark area Friday into Saturday, while NJIT bused back from the Washington, DC, area and hosted Lees-McRae less than 24 hours after departing from George Mason.
 
The outlook didn't get any better in Saturday's opening set, as Lees-McRae took a wire-to-wire 25-21 decision. The Bobcats won the first three points and never trailed, despite letting the Highlanders get as close as two points of the lead late at 19-17, 20-18 and 21-19. But three consecutive Markle kills staked the visitors to a commanding 24-20 lead. Goodridge postponed the loss of the set with a kill, but Markle nailed another kill for the 25-21 win. In all, Markle notched 11 of his 20 total kills in the opening frame.
 
The turbulence continued for NJIT well into the second set. Having never led in the first set, the Highlanders continued to play from behind, trailing the second all the way to the 15th point. Having been down as many as four earlier, NJIT took its first lead of the night, 15-14, on a block by Robben and Anthony. Lees-McRae got back the point, but Goodridge had a kill to make it 16-15, The freshman from Barbados then he served consecutive aces, fueling a 10-4 Highlander run to close out the frame and draw even at a set apiece.
 
Having tasted a bit of playing from in front, NJIT reverted, dropping the first three points of the third set. But the Highlanders went on a 6-2 tear for their first lead of the set at 6-5 after an ace for Robben. There was a later tie at 10-10, but the Highlanders rode a 7-2 spurt to a 17-12 lead and the visitors didn't get closer than four the rest of the set.
 
The fourth set had seven ties and three lead changes. However, all seven ties went up to just 8-8 and a Borecki kill put the home team on top for good, 9-8. Up 11-10, the Highlanders pulled clear with a 6-1 run that made the score a comfortable 17-11 and they cruised from there.
 
Although NJIT enters its next block of four EIVA games still aiming for a conference win, Saturday's win over Lees-McRae. As mentioned, the Bobcats took both head-to-head matches in 2013, as well as the second leg of the 2012 home-and-home after NJIT won the first.
 
In addition, Lees-McRae is one of the stronger teams in Conference Carolinas, a circuit whose champion will receive an automatic qualifier in an expanded NCAA Division I/II postseason championship tournament beginning this season.
 
For many years, the NCAA Championship field was a four-team affair comprised of the champion of the three major regional leagues in the sport (EIVA, which includes NJIT and is dominated by Penn State; MIVA, the "Midwest" league; and MPSF, the "West Coast" league; plus a fourth at-large team, invariably a second team from the dominant MPSF).
 
Now, the NCAA field is expanded to six (meaning there will be two play-ins in a first round and two top seeds with byes). The fifth team will come from Conference Carolinas, the only Division II multi-sport conference that includes men's volleyball as a core sport. The sixth team in the championship field will be a second at-large representative, most likely another MPSF team.
 
The Highlanders, who played Lees-McRae twice each in 2012 and 2013 are done with the Bobcats for 2104, having played the only scheduled match between the two. Next up for NJIT is a visit on Saturday, March 1, for 4 pm EIVA match at Harvard.