Photo courtesy of Ramapo Athletics.
Ramapo’s men’s volleyball team competed in the Skyline Conference Tournament on April 7. The Roadrunners were tabbed as the No. 3 seed prior to the tournament after finishing the season with a 11-3 record in the conference. In the first match of the tournament, Ramapo was matched up against No. 2 seed New Jersey City University (NJCU).
Ramapo went into the tournament on a three-match win streak but could not use that as a boost in this one. NJCU won all three games of the Tournament Semifinal by the scores of 25-22, 25-16 and 25-10. The Gothic Knights improved to 22-8 overall after the win.
Leading the way for Ramapo was Andrew Finnegan, who had 12 kills on the day. Behind him was teammate Jason van der Wilt who had eight. In addition to that, Van der Wilt added eight digs, a block and a team-high two aces. Other leaders in kills were Reece Kirchofer with four and Brendan Edwards with three.
Josh Titus spent the day trying to set his teammates up for success with 26 assists, leading the team. He also had eight digs in his eventful day. Jack DiGirolamo had a team-high four blocks — three solo and one assisted.
As a team, Ramapo posted 31 kills on 103 attempts and 21 errors. The team ended the day hitting just .097. On the day, the Roadrunners had 29 assists as opposed to NJCU’s 38.
NJCU was led by James Bajor and Jonathan Andrews, who both had 12 kills. Bajor led both teams on the day by hitting .400, and he also accumulated seven digs and three blocks. Brandon DaSilva tailed them with eight kills and also posted four blocks, which led the team. Leo Ferrari tallied 32 assists in addition to his six digs and one blocked shot. As a team, NJCU had 39 kills on 87 attempts. The team only committed 12 errors in the match and hit .310.
Although Ramapo lost its first game of the tournament, the team’s season is not over yet. In the ECAC Men’s Volleyball Tournament, the team placed as the No. 2 seed. The Roadrunners will play on Sunday, April 16 in the Bradley Center, where both the semifinals and championship will take place.
In the semifinals, Ramapo will host the winner of the match between Kean University and Hunter College at 2 p.m.. If they win that game, they will move to the championship where there is a chance they can get their revenge against No. 1 NJCU. NJCU will face the winner of the match between Penn State – Altoona and City College of New York. The winner of that game will move to the finals as well.
bschmid@ramapo.edu
