Posted: Mar 02, 2012
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BEVERLY, Mass. – The Endicott men’s volleyball team hosted \#6 New York University on Friday evening in non-conference action and the Gulls battled the Violet through the first two sets, but NYU rallied over the final two games to win 3-1 (25-21, 23-25, 25-14, 25-15).
The Gulls (8-6) saw senior captain Jeremy Siden (Natick, Mass.) strike a team-high 10 kills and sophomore middle Travis Netherton (Waukegan, Ill.) assisted on four blocks, but it was not enough as NYU’s (11-2) Taylor Fauntleroy (Santa Barbara, Calif.) and Matthew MacDonald (Lake Forest, Calif.) combined for 33 kills in the Violet victory.
Fauntleroy led NYU with 19 kills but MacDonald, Nick Capriccio (Huntington Beach, Calif.), Luke Hamlet (Long Beach, N.Y.) all had efficient offensive games with a combined .565 hitting percentage. MacDonald had 14 kills, Capriccio had eight and Hamlet had seven kills. There were only three errors between that trio.
Violet setter, sophomore Connor Mortland (San Diego, Calif.), dished out a match-high 49 assists while also factoring into NYU’s defensive presence with four total blocks.
Jeremy Schlosser (Emmaus, Pa.) and Carter Roche (Clifton Park, N.Y.) handled the setting duties for Endicott with 18 and 13 assists, respectively.
Defensively for Endicott, libero Andrew Slocum (Burnt Hills, N.Y.) led all Gulls with seven digs with Schlosser adding six more. For NYU, MacDonald paced the Violets with nine digs with libero Jay Hayes (Naperville, Ill.) contributing with seven digs of his own.
In the first set, the Gulls and Violet were knotted at 20-20 before a four point swing by NYU helped to hand the visitors a 25-21 set win. Two kills by Fauntleroy were critical in NYU’s first set victory.
In another back-and-forth second set, Endicott claimed six of the last eight points including two kills sophomore Kevin Duggan (Glastonbury, Conn.) that handed the Gulls a 25-23 win.
With the match tied, NYU dominated the final sets of the match by building large leads early thanks to hitting percentages of .560 and .481, respectively. NYU went up six in the third set before settling on an 11-point advantage to win 25-14 and went up by nine points early and went on to win 25-15 in set four.
Endicott hosts NECC rival Daniel Webster on Tuesday, March 6th at 7:00 pm in MacDonald Gymnasium while NYU continues their New England trip with a double dip against Mount Ida and MIT tomorrow afternoon.
