The NYU men's volleyball team dropped a five-set match to the Princeton Tigers last night at the Dillon Gym in Princeton, N.J.
The Violets dropped the first set 30-22, but rebounded to take both the second set at 33-31 and the third at 30-28. But they fell apart after that, dropping the fourth set by a 30-11 margin and losing in the fifth set 15-7.
They committed more attack errors than kills in each of the last two sets, while they allowed Princeton (2-3, 0-0 EIVA Tait Conference) to hit 14 kills in the fourth set and six in the fifth set without an attack error. For the match, the Violets were out-killed by Princeton 70-65 and committed 39 attack errors to Princeton's 22.
Four Violet players finished in double digits in kills, led by freshman Cooper Gwaltney with 18 and senior captain Mike Ferragonio with 14. But between the two they also had 23 attack errors between them. Sophomore Ryan Limb had 12 kills while junior Francis Hodgson added 10.
Princeton, meanwhile, got some powerful performances from its outside hitters. Freshman Pat Schwagler led the team with 22 kills and committed just three errors. Junior Vincent Tuminelli notched 20 kills, and senior Carl Hamming added 19.
Gwaltney also led the Violets in digs, with 14. Sophomore captain Jay Hayes was right behind him with 13. Freshman Karl Johnson did the majority of the setting for the Violets, registering 35 assists, while junior Ori Oren had 19 and freshman Trevor Salter had six. For the Tigers, Hamming led the team with 13 digs, followed closely by Tuminelli with 11.
The Tigers also out-blocked the Violets 17.5 to 10.
With the loss, the Violets fall to 1-5 on the season and are 0-1 in the EIVA Hay Conference. They will try to rebound Feb. 16 when they travel to Newark to take on Hay Conference rival New Jersey Institute of Technology in a 7 p.m. match.
