Buena Vista, VA | For the second night in a row the Scarlet Raiders suffered a 3-1 defeat to a ranked opponent. No. 11 Southern Virginia University improved to 20-2, 10-0 while knocking the Scarlet Raiders down to 14-9, 6-4.
Arvind Kumar led the team with 11 kills while also leading with seven service aces. Kumar also paced the team with a .115 hitting percentage while
Elan Dorkhman followed with 9 kills.
Arnan Romua led the team with 15 assists while
Travis Emenaker picked up 14.
Southern Virginia University jumped out to a 4-1 lead, a lead the Scarlet Raiders were unable to overcome. Kumar served up a service ace to cut into the lead and bring it down to one, the closest Rutgers-Newark came all set. SVU followed up with two straight points to take a three-point lead, 23-20.
Brendon Frank tried to swing momentum in back in their favor with a kill from Romua. SVU was able to fend off the Scarlet Raiders come back effort and score a pair to secure the first set.
SVU once again jumped out to an early lead, this time Rutgers-Newark was unable to mount the same comeback in game two. Towards the end of the set, SVU went on a 5-1 run which sealed set two in their favor.
Rutgers-Newark battled their way to a win in the third set. After leading for the first half, the Scarlet Raiders surrendered the lead shortly after two straight points by the home squad. A kill by Kumar followed by a pair of attacking errors propelled the Scarlet Raiders back into the lead. Kumar then followed that up with a pair of aces to further extend their lead. Dorkhman picked up two of the final four points to put Rutgers-Newark on the board.
The beginning of the fourth set looked like the beginning of the previous one where Rutgers-Newark took the lead early on. SVU knotted the set up at 14 then went on a 6-0 run to jump out to a 20-14 lead. Southern Virginia had the momentum on their side and they carried that to victory to end the match.
Rutgers-Newark returns to action tomorrow afternoon in Harrisonburg, VA against Eastern Mennonite University at 1:00 pm.
