JERSEY CITY, N.J. — The New Jersey City University women's volleyball team picked up a big victory at the John J. Moore Athletics and Fitness Center (JMAC) on Thursday night, Oct. 28, as the Gothic Knights defeated Mount Saint Mary College in four sets (23-25, 25-18, 25-19, 25-21).

Prior to the match against the Knights (14-12), Jersey City (14-10) paid homage to its three graduating team members as part of the pre-game Senior Night ceremony — Leah Seickendick (Hoboken, N.J./Hudson Catholic), Krista Bartko (Edison, N.J./Edison) and Madeline Lopez (Elizabeth, N.J./Hudson Catholic). The trio have combined to play in nearly 230 matches during their careers.
 
Following the ceremony, NJCU hunkered down and faced off with MSMC for a non-conference battle of two evenly matched squads. The first set saw the Gothic Knights fall behind big early as the visiting Knights led by 9-4 right off the bat. Jersey City slowly stayed afloat until the squad was trailing 18-11. At that point, the Gothic Knights flew out to a 12-4 run to take the 23-22 lead, including four kills from junior Paola Toledo (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic/Colegio Catolico San Rafael). Unfortunately they could not hold on and the Knights took the final three points to win it 25-23 and take the early 1-0 advantage.

Set number two was a completely different story and the Gothic Knights jumped out to their own 9-3 lead early on. Mount Saint Mary crawled its way back in to make it a 14-12 set, however NJCU took five in a row to make it 19-12. The two squads were even the rest of the set, but that worked in Jersey City's favor for the 25-18 set win. NJCU once again blew the doors off in the third set to the tune of a 12-3 to start. Junior defensive specialist Katrina Nguyendon (Union, N.J./Union) notched three aces over that span, while Toledo had three more kills. MSMC made several attempts to get back in it, but continued to fall short as the Gothic Knights won the set 25-19 to take a 2-1 match lead.

The fourth and final set went back and forth for most of the first half before NJCU managed to stretch it to a 20-14 advantage. However the Knights started to come back and made it a one-point set at 20-19 in favor of the Gothic Knights. Thankfully Jersey City settled in and won five of the final seven points to cement the set 25-21 and earn the 3-1 victory.

Highlights:
- Toldeo was on her game all night long as she led all players with a season-best 19 kills on an efficient 35 swings with just two errors (.486 hitting percentage). She added a season-high-tying four total blocks as well.
- Sophomore setter Sydney Lore (Marlton, N.J./Cherokee) finished with a match-high 36 aces to go with five digs and a block.
- On Senior Night, Lopez led all players with 22 digs to go with her career-best and match-high-tying five aces and a pair of kills.
- Nguyendon set a season-best with her match-high-tying five aces as well, adding 11 digs on the night too.
- Seickendick tied her career-high with a match-best 6.0 total blocks. She added four kills on the night as well.

Up Next:
The Gothic Knights close out their 2021 regular-season Saturday morning, Oct. 30, with another non-conference match at the JMAC. NJCU will host St. Joseph's College-Long Island at 11:00 a.m. Following that, NJCU awaits its fate as part of the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Championship, which selects its field late next week.