New Jersey City University Athletics

Box Score BOX SCORE
GAME PROGRAM/NOTES

JERSEY CITY, NJ (NJCUGothicKnights.com) | Reigning Skyline Conference Player of the Week and junior setter/opposite JUSTIN BEAUMONT (Bayonne, NJ/Bayonne) delivered 30 assists and hit .571, and Gothic Knight outside hitters BESMIR ARSLANI (Wayne, NJ/Wayne Valley)  and KENNY LISK (Old Bridge, NJ/Old Bridge) each hit well above .400 as New Jersey City University moved back to .500 on the season by sweeping a Skyline Conference match from Yeshiva University, 3-0 (25-19, 25-17, 27-25) on Thursday night at the John J. Moore Athletics and Fitness Center on “Coach Charlie Brown Court.”
NJCU evens its record at 8-8 overall and is 5-3 in the Skyline Conference while improving to 23-0 all-time against the Maccabees (3-9, 1-6 Skyline). While NJCU has swept every match ever played against Yeshiva, the visitors came very close in the third period to winning a set for the first time against the Gothic Knight reserves. NJCU also swept the first meeting of the year between the schools on February 12 on a neutral court.
 
NJCU hit .312 as a team (47-17-96) and slammed 17 kills in each of the first two sets when the Knights hit .481 and .520, respectively. Yeshiva has a good effort offensively, hitting .269 as a team with 28 kills (28-10-67), including a .500 percentage and 13 kills in the first set (13-3-20). That was a big improvement from the first meeting of the season when Yeshiva had just 13 kills the entire match and hit -.065.
 
Beaumont hit .571 with eight kills and no errors (14 attempts), dished 30 assists with a .492 setting percentage, and landed three of NJCU's nine service aces.
 
Freshman outside hitter and three-time Skyline Conference Rookie of the Week BESMIR ARSLANI (Wayne, NJ/Wayne Valley) had a match-best 14 kills against just four errors (24 attempts) for a .417 attack rate, and added two aces. Arslani reached double figures in kills for the 13^th time in 16 matches this year and had the match-high in kills for a  12th time.
 
Senior outside hitter KENNY LISK (Old Bridge, NJ/Old Bridge) moved into seventh place in school history in career kills, planting nine winners against two errors (17 attempts) for a .412 percentage. He increased his career kills mark to 851 and passed Thiago Siqueira (2006-09, 848 kills) on the career kills list.
 
Rookie opposite ANGEL MARTINEZ (Pleasantville, NJ/Pleasantville) hit .500 with four winners (4-1-6). Freshman middle blocker IVAN PRENSA (Jersey City, NJ/Dickinson) hit .375 with four kills (4-1-8) and freshman setter ANDRES MARTINEZ (Union City, NJ/Union City) had five digs, four assists and two aces in two sets off the bench.
 
Yeshiva received a solid effort from senior outside hitter Raphael Herskovits (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) who landed eight kills (8-4-20), hit .200, with five digs, four aces and four blocks. Sophomore setter Adam Rhodes (Los Angeles, CA) dished 18 assists.  Junior middle blocker Daniel Lapson (Skokie, IL) tallied six kills with no errors (13 attempts) for a .462 percentage and added four blocks, while junior middle blocker Naftali Rosenthal (Overland Park, KS) hit .444 with six kills (6-2-9).
 
In the first set, Arslani hit .625 with six kills (6-1-8) and Lisk hit .750 with three kills on four attempts. Lapson hit at a .600 rate for YU (3-0-5). The set was close throughout and NJCU led by just one, 18-17, before scoring two quick points on kills by rookie middle blocker PATRYK RUSZNICA (Cieszyn, Poland/Bayonne) and Arslani for a 20-17 cushion. Leading 20-18, two more winners by Rusznica and ANGEL MARTINEZ made it 22-18, and a combo block by Prensa and Arslani extended it to 23-18 before an Arslani kill capped the period.
 
In the second period, Arslani hit .500 with five more kills (5-1-8) and NJCU smashed 17 as a team as part of a .520 attack clip. YU had only six kills but didn't commit an error and hit .375 at the net. The Knights build a 17-12 margin on back-to-back winners by Rusznica and Beaumont and grabbed a commanding 22-13 advantage on a pair of kills by Lisk, a Beaumont ace, and another shot by ANDRES MARTINEZ, before kills by Lisk, Arslani and Prensa sealed the 25-17 win.
 
Beaumont was the most accurate NJCU player in a sloppy third set. He hit .400 with seven assists and four kills (4-0-10). NJCU had 13 kills, but hit .091; Yeshiva had nine kills and a .065 percentage in the game. NJCU held what appeared to be a commanding 23-16 lead late in the period before Herskovits served seven consecutive times, scoring six points, including four aces—the last tying the set at 23-23. He committed a service error to give NJCU match point and a 24-23 advantage before the Knights committed a service error of their own. A subsequent attack error by NJCU gave Yeshiva its first-ever set point in the history of the series. But another service error by the Maccabees tied it at 25-25 and NJCU claimed a 26-25 edge on a Yeshiva attack error. With another match point in its hands, the Knights sealed the 27-25 decision with a Beaumont kill to end it.
 
NJCU is idle this weekend before it heads to Albany, NY on Monday, February 27 for a Skyline Conference match against The Sage Colleges at the Kahl Center.