JERSEY CITY, N.J. (February 22, 2018) – The Rutgers University-Newark men's volleyball team continued its splendid start to the 2018 season with a 3-0 road win at New Jersey City University Thursday night. The win is the 11th-straight for the Scarlet Raiders.
 
The set scores Thursday were 25-19, 25-11 and 25-11
 
"We came ready to go tonight and it showed," said Head Coach Pedro Trevino after the win. "NJCU is a tough place to play and our guys handled it well, but we have a lot of work to do before a big week of games coming up."
 
Rutgers-Newark improves to 12-1 with the win and is a perfect 6-0 outside of Newark. NJCU sees its two-match winning streak come to end, falling to 4-5 on the season.
 
Two kills from seniors Corey Pieper and Dom Gutowski early in the first helped Rutgers-Newark to an early 6-2 lead, but the Gothic Knights rallied to tie the score at 10 after 20 total points.
 
After trading tallies, a 5-1 Scarlet Raider spurt featuring kills from Pieper and senior Ricky Crumlish and a block from Pieper and senior Jalen Sorrell gave Rutgers-Newark some breathing room. NJCU would get within three at 22-19, but a winner from freshman setter Travis Emenaker, an ace from senior Justin Sandy and a kill from Sorrell sealed a 1-0 lead.
 
A Sandy spike gave Newark an early 7-3 lead in the second set, and later in the action back-to-back kills from Pieper and Gutowski gave Rutgers a 17-7 advantage. Gutowski aced the hosts to push the lead to 11, and the Raiders cruised from there, getting a kill from Sorell and an NJCU error to clinch the 2-0 lead.
 
The two teams traded points early in the third set, with kills from Sorrell and Pieper as part of a 3-0 Rutgers-Newark rally making the score 6-3. The lead swelled to six (10-4) following a solo block from Sorrell, and moments later, another Sandy ace pushed the margin to seven at 12-5. Freshmen Nicholas Arce-Cox and Kyle Loesner combined on a block to up the guests' edge to nine (16-7), and junior outside Brendon Frank came through with a hammer to double up NJCU at 18-9. Loesner would close out the triumph with his third kill of the frame which marked the teams' 33rd set triumph in its last 35 sets played.
 
Rutgers-Newark held NJCU to a hitting percentage of -.158 for the match and just 17 total points, limiting the hosts to 12 kills (24 errors), 12 assists and five blocks. The Scarlet Raiders had 40 kills and just 12 errors, six blocks and five aces, piling up 51 points and a .329 hitting percentage. The Newark passers – junior Arnan Romua (19) and Emenaker (11) teamed for 36 assists, the Raider 'D' has not allowed a hitting percentage better than .145 in its last 11 matches.
 
Stat Fact: For the season, Rutgers-Newark is now hitting .304 while holding the opposition to .062.
 
The Scarlet Raider offense had four players with seven kills or more. Sandy had eight (.286) with two aces and three digs, while Pieper had eight (.283) with five digs. Sorrell hit .417 on his way to seven spikes and three blocks, and Gutowski racked up seven winners and a .600 hitting percentage. Crumlish lifted a team-high seven digs, Romua totaled 19 assists and six digs and sophomore Libero Jake Connors picked up four digs. Emenaker totaled two kills and 11 assists (1.000), and Loesner had a perfect hitting percentage and three kills.