Box Score Harrisonburg, VA – The State University of New York at New Paltz men's volleyball team dropped a straight set decision to Eastern Mennonite University 16-25, 20-25, 25-27. The Hawks were never to find a rhythm offensively or from the serving line as they only hit .122 and missed 16 serves in the match.
 
SUNY New Paltz struggled to get into the match after dropping the first six points of the opening set and allowing three service aces by William Ragland. Later in the set a kill by Aaron Carrk cut the lead to 11-14, but the Royals ran away with the set winning 25-16 with a .381 hitting percentage.
 
The second set saw a more efficient offense for the Hawks as they recorded 10 kills on 22 attempts with only four errors, but missed serves never allowed SUNY New Paltz to complete the second set comeback after trailing 5-12 early on. The nine service errors in the set hindered their ability to go on serving runs as Nick Smith was the only Hawk to record a two-point serving run.
 
Needing to sweep the final three sets SUNY New Paltz finally seemed to begin to figure things out as they took their first lead of the match early on in set three. A kill by senior middle blocker Ryan Cole followed by an attacking error from Eastern Mennonite gave the Hawks a late 22-20 lead in the vital third set, but a four-point run from the Royals gave them two match points. A Nick Smith kill erased the first match point and then an attack by Ragland just missed the sideline tying up the set at 24. However, SUNY New Paltz was unable to pull out the set and they fell 27-25.
 
The match was statistically dominated by Eastern Mennonite as they recorded more kills, aces, blocks, assists, and digs than the Hawks. Christian Taylor led the Royals offense with a game-high 28 assists, while Ragland recorded 11 kills.
 
Smith highlighted the Hawks match with a game-high 12 kills on 30 attempts, while Matthew Grace tallied 20 assists. Robert Nolan led the defensive effort with five digs.

Head Coach Radu Petrus knows there isn't much time before the Hawks play again, but holds out hope that they can make some adjustments on the court. "We will try and do our best to fix some things tomorrow in practice," said Petrus. "We will try and fix the tempo and our discipline, but we don't have a lot of time before our next games so we will see."
 
The Hawks continue their road trip in Virginia on Friday as they take on Stevenson University at 4:30 p.m. and No. 14 Marymount University at 7:00 p.m.