Photo courtesy of Ramapo Athletics
The men’s volleyball team wanted to end the regular season on a high note on Tuesday when they hosted the New York University Violets at the Bradley Center; however, they lost the contest 3-2 (25-22, 25-19, 16-25, 23-25, 9-15) despite winning the first two sets.
Prior to Tuesday’s game, Ramapo’s third year head coach Kevin Rodgers said that the team wanted to set the tone for their upcoming Skyline Conference Tournament games.
“Tomorrow we want to just go out there and be hungry,” Rodgers said. “We want to go out there and we want to just play our best and leave everything out on the floor, so that we get a win heading into conference.”
For the Roadrunners, freshman Justin Feigeles led the offense with 18 kills and an ace while sophomore Ryan Casci was second in total scoring kills with 17 and two aces. In addition, Feigeles and Casci had an assist each and 19 digs combined as Feigeles defended 13 shots while Casci stopped six scoring opportunities.
Senior captain Peter Desvousges was a versatile performer in the contest as he tallied five defensive digs and five offensive kills in addition to an ace.
Sophomore setter Alec Weissman was an assist machine as he claimed 41 of the team’s 48 assists. Weissman also collected a kill, an assist and three digs.
Sophomore Kurt MacDonald was a defensive standout as he stopped 21 balls from touching the Ramapo side of the court. MacDonald recorded a kill on offense and then dished out four assists in the match.
Freshman Marinus Tavernier added three kills, two aces and two blocks to go along with an assist and two digs. Fellow freshman Matt Goldberg tallied three kills of his own and added two digs on defense. Sophomore Nick Amos collected two kills, a block and a dig.
Junior Colin LaPorte led the Violets with 16 kills to go along with two assists, six digs and four blocks. Freshman Andrew Zhu was second in kills with 10. Zhu recorded an additional ace, three blocks and seven digs. Junior middle hitter Phil Bueno finished with seven kills, three aces, seven blocks, two assists and a dig.
Senior captain Andrew Quirk led the Violets in defensive digs with 13. Sophomore setter Derrick Chlu led the Violets in assists with 20, while Quirk added two assists of his own.
The New York University Violets posted 45 successful kills on 125 attempts with a hitting percentage of .224.
Desvousges said the team needed to come out with higher energy against NYU.
“Same thing we have against conference teams and big games, we’re just going to come out with high energy and high intensity and hope we get a win out of it,” said Desvousges.
The Roadrunners locked up the No. 2 seed in the Skyline Conference, as they will host No. 3 New Jersey City today in the first round of the Skyline Conference Tournament.
pmcguire@ramapo.edu
