Photo courtesy of Ramapo Athletics
The Roadrunners volleyball team earned their fifth win in their last six matches with a 3-0 (25-6, 25-9, 25-16) win in a Skyline Confernce matchup against the Sage Colleges on Saturday at home.
Ramapo had a .455 hitting percentage in the match, while Sage hit at .294 in the match.
Compared to Sage’s four kills, the Roadrunners had 34 kills. Freshman Justin Fiegeles collected seven, while senior Peter Desvousges collected six of his own. Sophomore Ryan Casci chipped in with five kills. Desvousges and Casci showed great discipline and each had zero errors in the match.
Head coach Kevin Rodgers has been a fan of their play, but said that with Skyline Conference Tournament coming up on Wednesday against New Jersey City University, it’s time to step it up a notch.
“They’ve been playing good,” said Rodgers. “I want to see how they react in a playoff situation though.”
Sophomore Alec Weissman dished out 19 assists while freshman Garrett Fitzsimmon added one kill and 10 assists in the match. Feigeles led the Roadrunners’ defensive effort with seven digs.
Rodgers noted that even though his squad defeated NJCU in three sets on March 21, his team narrowly escaped each set, earning 25-21, 27-25 and 25-22 victories.
“How are they going to do against [NJCU] in a playoff situation? I want to see how they react when things get tough,” Rodgers said. “When it comes down to it, how are we going to do against a good team?”
Despite having only nine errors against Sage, Rodgers expressed how there have been times this season when his team has been inconsistent.
“I think we just need to come out and not say that we want to win but show that we want to win,” said Rodgers. “Each time before a game, all of our guys have been saying how much we want to win, but when we go out on the court, we don’t have a sense of urgency. We need that sense of urgency; this is it. We just have to pretend every game is our last. If we do that I think that’s going to be the difference, because we have the talent. We just need to change the mentality to get us over the hump of beating these great teams.”
The Roadrunners finished as the No. 2 seed in the Conference with a 12-2 record and will host the No. 3 NJCU in the first round of the Skyline Conference Tournament on Wednesday.
“We’ve played competitively,” Rodgers said. “The only thing that matters is conference playoffs,” said Rodgers. “We kind of knew we were going to make the playoffs with our talent. When we hopefully play [first place] Kean in the finals, we’ll be ready. We’ve played competitively. The only thing that matters is Conference Playoffs.”
The Roadrunners return to action on Friday when they travel to Springfield, Mass. to take on Springfield College, who is ranked No. 6 in the latest American Coaches Volleyball Association National Rankings.
rmorik@ramapo.edu
