PROVIDENCE, R.I. (January 22, 2016) - The eighth-ranked Rutgers University-Newark men's volleyball team earned a pair of victories Friday night at an abbreviated Johnson & Wales Tournament as the Scarlet Raiders defeated Endicott College, 3-1, and swept the host Wildcats, 3-0.

R-N improved to 4-0 with the wins after two victories in The Golden Dome Classic, with Endicott dropping to 0-2 and JWU moving to 2-4. Originally, R-N was slated to play two matches Saturday but those have been canceled so the team could get back to New Jersey safely in front of the predicted winter storm.

The Scarlet Raiders dropped the first set 28-26 to the Gulls, but came back to roll 25-18, 25-21 and 25-19, and they won 25-16, 25-20, 25-22 against host Johnson and Wales.

R-N 3, Endicott 1
The Scarlet Raiders shook off the cobwebs of the long bus ride in the first, and hit .529 in the second while holding EC to a .143 conversion rate. For the match, R-N swung .306 with 57 total kills. The Raiders tallied seven aces, eight blocks, 53 assists and 33 digs, seeing three players tally double-digit kills in the match.

Senior opposite Travis Mintzer notched 14 kills, senior middle Cody Chidsey had 12 (.409) and junior middle Nick Kuti had 11 (.350), with Chidsey pacing the Scarlet Raiders with three blocks and three aces as well. Junior Jack Fredricks had a pair of aces, and both Kuti and Mintzer had three denials. Senior setter Kevin McCandless dished out 52 of the 53 assists in the match, and senior libero Quocmy Nguyen had a team-high 12 digs.

Endicott hit .282 in the match and junior Alex Wasik had a team-high 11 kills. The Gulls finished with 11 blocks, 25 digs and 43 assists.

Rutgers-Newark opened a 16-12 lead midway through the first set, eventually pushing the margin to 22-16, but the Gulls improbably came back to take the first to open a 1-0 lead in the match.

The Scarlet Raiders raced out to a 5-1 lead in set two, and after EC came back to get within one point (11-10), a 6-1 run keyed by a pair of Mintzer kills made it a 17-11 set score. The Gulls would again battle back within two but a Chidsey kill ended the rally before Chidsey served the Raiders to a match-tying (1-1) win that was punctuated by a kill from Fredricks.

The third set was a back-and-forth affair and Endicott was able to build a 20-18 lead before a 3-0 rally from R-N made it 21-20. A Raider service error allowed the Gulls to tie the score, but it was all Scarlet Raiders after that as a Kuti kill, a Kuti ace and two Mintzer hammers sent Rutgers to the lead (2-1).

After Endicott jumped in front 5-1, the Scarlet Raiders came back to take a 7-6 lead, eventually going on top 15-12 after back-to-back Kuti kills. The edge would swell to as many as seven following a Chidsey kill, and the Scarlet Raiders cruised the rest of the way to a 3-1 match victory.

Rutgers-Newark and Endicott met last year in the NCAA Tournament's opening round with R-N earning a 3-0 victory in The Golden Dome Arena.

R-N 3, JWU 0
The two sides went blow-for-blow early in the first set before a triple-block from sophomore outside Corey Pieper, Chidsey and McCandless ignited the Scarlet Raiders on the run that turned a 16-13 score to 21-14 and sealed the 1-0 match lead.

Rutgers-Newark opened its first four-point lead of the second set at 14-10, and after trading points a 3-0 run with the score 21-18 put the Raiders on the brink before a kill from Fredricks put R-N on top, 2-0.

In the third, every time the Scarlet Raiders would take a two-point edge, the Wildcats would come back to tie or take the lead and near the midway point the scoreboard was showing 14-all. Two errors and two kills later (Chidsey, Fredricks) R-N was able to build a 20-16 lead, and despite the Wildcats coming back within one (22-21), Rutgers-Newark scored three of the final four points to lock up the win and a 4-0 start to the season.

R-N hit a lofty .443 in the match and held JWU to a mark of .229. The Raiders finished with 42 kills, 55.5 points, four aces, nine blocks, 39 helpers and 30 digs. Pieper paced the attack with 13 hammers, getting 12 from Fredricks and eight from Kuti. Pieper had two aces, Kuti had seven blocks and McCandless dished out 35 assists. Nguyen (nine) and McCandless (eight) combined for 17 digs.

JWU had just three blocks in the match, struggling to halt the Raider attack, finishing with 35 kills, 31 assists and 28 digs.

Rutgers-Newark will return to action next weekend at the Kean University Tournament in Union, N.J.