UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The No. 11 Penn State men's volleyball team saw its five-match win streak snapped by NJIT Sunday afternoon in a 3-0 Highlander win at Rec Hall.
The Nittany Lions (6-2, 3-1 EIVA) drop their first conference regular season match since the final match of the 2019 regular season at Princeton (April 13).
NJIT (3-3, 3-1 EIVA) flipped the script from Saturday's match by winning the serving battle against the Nittany Lions on Sunday. The Highlanders had 10 aces to PSU's 2 and several of those aces came at crucial moments in all three games.
Cal Fisher and Michal Kowal had 17 kills between them to lead the Nittany Lions offensively. Kowal and Cole Bogner had eight digs each.
NJIT's Alvaro Gimeno led all scorers with 18.0 points with 16 kills hitting .652. Julian Meissner had six of NJIT's 10 service aces.
Penn State held a slight advantage through the first half of game one and led by three, 18-15, after a kill from Kowal, but the Highlanders stormed back winning five of the next six points to take a 20-19 advantage.
Fisher tied the score at 20-all with a kill, but NJIT closed the set with another run highlighted by three Meissner aces in a row to win 25-21.
Set two followed a similar flow with Penn State hanging on to a small lead to begin the frame, but a couple more NJIT spurts allowed the Highlanders to speed ahead once again with a Gimeno kill putting NJIT up 19-16.
Penn State wouldn't go quietly winning the next three points to tie the score 19-19 thanks to a Fisher kill, a block by Canyon Tuman and Tim Herget, plus another kill by Herget.
However, another Meissner service run gave NJIT a four-point margin at its first match point, which was enough to eventually take a 2-0 lead in the match.
Set three was all Highlanders as NJIT used an 8-0 run to lead 11-2, once again behind Meissner's serve. Freshman Toby Ezeonu subbed in and stopped the streak with his first-career kill, but the Nittany Lions' efforts to close the margin weren't enough as the Highlanders took the match with a dominant 25-9 score in set three.
NEXT UP
Penn State travels to Sacred Heart to continue its EIVA schedule Feb. 20-21.
