NEWARK, NJ—Sacred Heart gained the upper hand for the night with a comfortable 25-17 win over NJIT in the opening set of their Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association match Thursday night in the Fleisher Athletic Center and the visiting Pioneers went on to a 3-1 victory after taking two ff the ensuing three close frames.
 
NJIT got even in sets, going extra points to take the second frame, 28-26. But Sacred Heart regained the lead with a 25-21 win in the third set and then clinched in the extra-point fourth, 26-24.
 
With the win, Sacred Heart goes to 1-1 in the EIVA and 3-5 overall, while the Highlanders fall to 0-2 in the EIVA and 5-4 overall.
 
Redshirt senior Enzo Mackenzie was the big hitter for the Pioneers, generating a match-best 20 kills, seven more than teammate Austin Arcala and more than twice the total of any Highlander, as Jabarry Goodridge and Ryan Thomas shared the NJIT lead with 9 kills apiece.
 
Mackenzie, who hails from Brazil, was a force Thursday, getting his 20 kills in just 29 attempts, with only 5 errors. Mackenzie's hitting percentage was an impressive .517. And that impressive hitting percentage wasn't even the highest for the Pioneers, as junior middle Travis Vonholt hit at a .625 clip (10 kills, 0 errors, 16 attempts).
 
Sophomore setter Eduardo Zardo, also from Brazil, piled up 50 assists for the Pioneers, who also had 7 service aces. Sacred Heart got aces from six different players, topped by two for Mackenzie.
 
On defense, Arcala had a team-best 10 digs, giving him an offense-defense double-double, pairing the 10 digs with his 13 kills.
 
Sacred Heart had 13 total team blocks, headed by Christopher DeLucie's 7 blocks (1 solo, 6 assisted. Doug Dzema had 6 block assists, followed by Mackenzie and Vonholt, each with 5 block assists.
 
For NJIT, Thomas got his 9 kills on 15 swings without an attacking error (.600 attack percentage). NJIT's other middle hitter, Luke Robbe added 7 kills, with one error in 14 attempts. However, the rest of the attack, mostly from the outside struggled, with the team aside from Thomas and Robbe, combining for 20 errors against 25 kills.
 
Zak Robben notched 37 assists as the NJIT setter and Thomas generated three of NJIT's six service aces.
 
Libero Oren Zyndorf and TJ Jurko shared the Highlander lead with 7 digs each and Robbe was tops in blocks with five (1 solo, 4 assists). Goodridge, Robben, and Thomas all added 4 block assists apiece.
 
The opening set was never close, with Sacred Heart claiming a 5-1 early lead and going wire-to-wire for the 25-17 win.
 
The Highlanders bounced back in the second set, never trailing by more than two points and claiming a 16-12 lead toward the middle of the frame. NJIT stayed on top from 12-11 through 22-21, but SHU spurted into first a tie and then the lead at 24-23. A point away from claiming a comeback win in the set, the Pioneers never got set point and the Highlanders finally prevailed 28-26 with set point coming on a block by Robben and Robbe.
 
The third frame was tied as late as 20-20, but the visitors finished it off on a 5-1 run that included five kills, two each for Zardo and DeLucie.
 
The fourth set went to extra points, but unlike the earlier second set, Sacred Heart came out ahead, clinching the match in the process. There were 14 ties and five lead changes along the way..
 
NJIT spent the latter stages of the set trying to avoid defeat. Down 16-20, NJIT got within a point of the lead at 21-22, 22-23 and 23-24 before pulling even on a kill by Thomas that staved off match point. The Thomas kill tied the set at 24-24, but Dzema and DeLucie combined on a Pioneer block and then DeLucie's block solo clinched the set and match for the visitors, 26-24.
 
The Highlanders are just two matches into their 12-match EIVA schedule, but there are no breathers in what is now an all-Division I grouping. Next up is one of the loop's top teams, Harvard, which comes into the Fleisher Athletic Center for a Saturday match that is now scheduled for 2 pm.
 
Originally scheduled for 4 pm, the match was moved up to benefit Harvard's travel back to the blizzard-ravaged Boston area. Already buried under many feet of snow, the area is expected to get more on Saturday night into Sunday with as much as half-a-foot piled on to the existing base.
 
Ranked #13 in the latest American Volleyball Coaches Association national Division I-II poll, the Crimson will play another EIVA match at Princeton on Friday night before visiting NJIT on Saturday.
 
Harvard, which has won the last four meetings, leads the all-time series against NJIT, 20-16.
 
Off to a 5-3 overall start this season, the Crimson are led by senior DJ White, a three-time All-EIVA first-team hitter who was an honorable mention All-America pick in 2014. He also plays on age group United States Men's National Teams.