NEWARK, N.J. (October 20, 2015) – The Rutgers University-Newark women's volleyball team suffered a tough five-set loss to Mount Saint Mary College Tuesday night in The Golden Dome Arena.
 
It is the second-straight five-set loss for the Scarlet Raiders who fall to 10-12 overall. The Knights improve to 10-17 overall and have now won 10 of their last 13 matches.
 
Rutgers-Newark opened the match strong, winning the first two sets by scores of 25-14 and 25-19. MSMC won the third, 25-20, the fourth 25-17, and the fifth 16-14.
 
Freshman Cassie Luken led R-N with 11 kills (.292), three aces and seven blocks, and freshman Jess Moy added nine kills. Senior Sharee Gordon had eight kills and nine blocks, while sophomore Nathalie Breining had 30 assists. Sophomore Sue Riley (32), junior Kathy Hormaza (19) and Breining (17) paced the Raider diggers, while junior Tabitha Davis had four kills and six blocks.
 
Rutgers tallied 35 kills (26 errors) and hit .056 for the match. The Scarlet Raiders dished out 35 assists, tallied 10 aces and had 16 team blocks.
 
Rachel Sabatini and Kayla Kurka combined for 33 kills to lead the Knights, who hit .054 and had seven aces and seven blocks.
 
In the final set, R-N was able to hold off the Knights on one match point, before two-straight kills sealed the win for Mt. St. Mary. Overall, the fifth set was extremely tight, seeing tie scores at one, two, three, four, six, seven, eight, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14, but R-N just was not able to seal the victory.
 
With the opening set tied at 10, the Scarlet Raiders exploded to close things out, going on a 6-1 rally to take a 16-11 margin as Gordon and Moy each had hammers. A Luken kill gave R-N a 20-14 edge and started a 6-0 run to close on Hormaza's serve. Another Luken kill gave Rutgers a 1-0 lead.
 
Three-straight MSMC errors helped Rutgers-Newark open an early 6-3 lead, and after the guests tied the score, a 3-0 spurt on Riley's serve gave the Raiders a 16-12 edge. MSMC came back to tie things again at 16 and 18, but R-N closed the set on a 7-1 run, keyed by aces from Hormaza and Luken.
 
Rutgers raced out to a 5-1 margin in the third, but the Knights hung tough and came back to take an 8-5 lead. The guests would eventually go up by six, and after Rutgers made a run to get within one at 14-13, an 8-2 rally essentially sealed the set and made it a 2-1 match in favor of the Scarlet Raiders.
 
R-N jumped out early in the fourth, but an 8-0 run from MSMC made it 11-5 and the Scarlet Raiders could not get closer than four the rest of the set.
 
The Scarlet Raiders will return to action Wednesday night at St. Joseph's-L.I. in a non-conference matchup.