NJCU Captures 2023 ECAC Men's Volleyball Crown
ERIE, Pa. - New Jersey City University made an epic comeback Saturday afternoon at the Junker Center to knock off homestanding Penn State-Behrend, 3-2 (16-25, 21-25, 29-27, 25-19, 15-9), to win the Eastern College Athletic Conference Tournament championship.
The Gothic Knights (19-10) - a top-two seed in the ECAC Tournament for the second straight season - close their year with wins in three of their last four matches, having also won the Skyline Conference title for the third straight year. Penn State-Behrend (19-9) - the top seed in the ECAC Tournament - finishes its season with losses in two of its last three matches following a run of six victories in seven outings.
Penn State-Behrend - which advanced to the championship match with a three-set win over Saint Elizabeth earlier Saturday - took the first two sets of the match, 25-16 and 25-21, and the Lions looked to close out the match in the third set, but NJCU showed its mettle to extend the match and force a fourth set. In a set that featured a staggering 19 ties, the teams traded point for point the whole way through and the Gothic Knights fought off three Penn State-Behrend match points before kills by James Bajor and Mahmoud Serour and an attack error by Penn State-Behrend gave NJCU the 29-27 win in Set 3.
Winning that hard-fought set gave NJCU a momentum boost it carried for the remainder of the match. A 5-1 run by the Gothic Knights gave NJCU a 13-7 lead and after that burst, Penn State-Behrend only got as close as two points - the last time coming at 14-12 after an NJCU attack error - as NJCU kept the Lions at bay en route to a 25-19 win in Set 4.
NJCU raced out to a 5-1 lead in Set 5 before Penn State-Behrend made its final stand to try and get control of the match back from the Gothic Knights. A 4-2 spurt from the Lions got Penn State-Behrend back to within 7-5, but NJCU went on a 6-0 run of its own to go up 13-5 to cruise to the tournament championship.
To give an idea of how much the momentum of the match swung from one team to the other, in the first two sets, Penn State-Behrend hit .322 (29 kills, 10 errors on 59 attacks), while NJCU hit .096 (16 kills, 11 errors on 52 attacks). Over the final three sets, NJCU hit .367 (39 kills, 10 errors on 79 attacks) to .138 (31 kills, 20 errors on 80 attacks) for Penn State-Behrend. In the fifth and deciding set, NJCU hit .353 with eight kills and two errors on 17 swings, while Penn State-Behrend finished at -.250 with just two kills and six errors on 16 attacks.
NJCU's Brandon DaSilva was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player, finishing with 21 kills (against just three errors) and a .545 attack percentage on 33 swings, along with five block assists and a solo block for the Gothic Knights. Amaru Perales added 11 kills and four block assists, Serour just missed a double-double with nine kills, 10 digs, and two block assists, Bajor had seven kills, four digs and two block assists. Leo Ferrari filled the stat sheet with six kills, 12 assists, eight digs, three block assists and a solo block, Daniel Esteva had 14 digs and three assists, and Alex Casais handed out 36 assists and had five digs for the Gothic Knights.
Kyle Hoffman led Penn State-Behrend with 18 kills, three digs and three block assists. Owen Wienczkowski had 12 kills and four block assists, Cameron Schleicher tossed in 12 kills and three digs, Dylan Buzalka pitched in eight kills and five digs, and setter Alex Jackson did some of everything for the Lions, dishing out 48 assists along with 12 digs and six kills as well.