Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 The State University of New York at New Paltz men's volleyball team streaked to six straight wins in dramatic fashion Sunday, taking out No. 5 UC Santa Cruz in straight sets, 25-23, 25-22, 25-20 and No. 7 Dominican University in a tightly contested four-set match, 24-26, 26-24, 25-17, 25-23.
 
The Hawks (11-4) came into the tri-match at the bottom of the rankings at No. 15 and had a chance to prove they belonged in the conversation as one of the best teams in the country. One of the focuses for SUNY New Paltz in practices leading up to this weekend had been keeping the energy level high and maintaining good team chemistry. They did just that and came out firing against UC Santa Cruz (21-9) in the opening match. With two service aces in the first nine points, and a big block from senior co-captain Ryan Cole and sophomore Tevin Skeete, the Hawks jumped out to a 7-2 lead.
 
However, the Banana Slugs slithered back into the set and cut the lead to one point at 19-20. Reigning UVC and AVCA Player of the Week Nick Smith took control and racked up a kill and an ace on back-to-back points to give the Hawks set point at 24-20. UC Santa Cruz wasn't ready to give up yet and ran three straight points to get the score to 24-23. SUNY New Paltz wasn't able to convert a kill off the serve receive, but Nick Denoncourt and Bradley Schneider put up a big block and rejected Ryan Manley's attack to give the Hawks the crucial first set.
 
The Banana Slugs were the ones to jump out early in set two, taking a 4-1 lead, but with Smith at the serving line SUNY New Paltz answered right back to take a 5-4 lead. Later in the set with the score tied at 18, sophomore setter Matthew Grace kept the defense on their heels and turned to Skeete, who put down a one-ball out of the middle. The momentum shifted in favor of the Hawks as they ran the next five out of seven points to take a 24-20 lead once again. UC Santa Cruz started to come back and took the next two points to cut the score to 24-22, but head coach Radu Petrus called a timeout to set up a play for his offense. Grace set junior outside hitter Bradley Schneider and Schneider took care of business, giving SUNY New Paltz the two sets to none lead.
 
The Hawks used their energy level and momentum in the third set to carry them to victory as they never trailed. SUNY New Paltz got out to a 5-1 lead thanks to three kills from Smith and two kills from Cole. Continuing to build the lead to 16-7, the Banana Slugs weren't able to fight back in the final set and ultimately fell 25-20.
 
Smith led the way on offense with 16 kills on 32 attempts and five errors for a solid .344 hitting percentage, while Cole was right behind with 14 kills on 29 attempts and five errors for a .310 percentage. Grace distributed the ball throughout the offense well, tallying 37 assists in the game as well as a couple of key dumps and service aces.
 
Sophomore libero Robert Nolan reached double-digit digs with 10, while Cole added eight of his own. Denoncourt was all over the net and racked up five total blocks for the match.
 
"I thought it was a great win," said Grace. "It's big for us because we had a little rough start to the season so to get a good win against a ranked opponent gives us a lot of good momentum going forward and good energy."
 
The Hawks defense and blocking was key in their victory as they held the Banana Slugs to a measly .081 team hitting percentage. The other important factor was their ability to stay in system on serve receive and in doing so it allowed them to hit .357 and .419 as a team in the final two sets.
 
"I thought our passing was great today," said Grace. "Nick Smith, Brad, and Robbie did a great job back there and that's really the key to our offense and those three did a really great job."
 
After Dominican University swept UC Santa Cruz in the second match of the day, both teams were coming in hot and confident to the final match of the day.
 
The Stars (13-4) and Hawks traded points to start the opening set, but down 3-4 SUNY New Paltz went on a key four-point run powered by two kills from Skeete. However, the Hawks struggled to hit around their block as Dominican was able to bring the score back to 11-12 thanks to three blocks in the previous six points. With neither team gaining an edge or making a run, the score was all tied up at 23. The Stars were able to side-out off a kill by Jake Sidner, but Cole stepped up and took away the first set point with a kill of his own. Unfortunately, the big block by the Stars denied SUNY New Paltz on back-to-back points and they walked away with the first set 26-24. Backed by the momentum of the first set, Dominican came out on fire to start the second set and ran up the score to a 6-1 lead. The Stars continued to hold their advantage and down 12-7, the Hawks needed to string some points together. SUNY New Paltz got the side-out off a kill from Skeete and then Matt Goldberg got to the serving line and helped run three straight points, cutting the lead to one point at 12-11. A few points later, a Grace service error gave the Hawks their first lead of the set. Dominican wasn't going anywhere though and hung with SUNY New Paltz the rest of the way. A kill by Smith at 23-21 gave the Hawks their first set point of the game, but once again the block from the Stars came up big and tied the match at 24. SUNY New Paltz went back to Smith again and he gave them their fourth set point, but this time they converted off a monster overpass kill from Skeete.
 
With the match tied at a set a piece the Hawks knew they had to take control and dominate the third set. After Goldberg ran three straight points at the serving line, SUNY New Paltz never looked back and didn't trail the entire set. Down the stretch Grace turned to Schneider on the final two points to close out the set 25-17 and move one set closer to going undefeated on the day.
 
Early in the set, SUNY New Paltz trailed 12-9 and had lost the momentum they had built from the last two sets, however, the Hawks remained calm and were able to crawl back into the set. The big play of the set came with the Stars leading 16-15 when Bradley Schneider extended his right arm in an attempt to put up a block on a back two from Dominican and his arm found the ball resulting in a game-changing block for SUNY New Paltz.
 
"For that one-handed block there near the end I saw Luke coming in for the back two and I actually kind of messed up a little bit and was a little outside, so I just tried to drop my right hand in there," said Schneider.
 
The Hawks and Stars continued to trade points, but SUNY New Paltz gave them too much to handle and was able to pull away with the 25-23 victory off an attacking error on the final point.
 
Smith, Schneider, and Cole led the offense with 15, 13 and 13 kills, respectively. Skeete also put in a solid effort totaling eight kills on 12 attempts with only two errors for a .500 hitting percentage. Grace tallied 45 assists for the match, while Cole finished with a double-double, racking up a team-high 11 digs.
 
Nick Timreck finished the match with an impressive 11 block assists and one solo block to lead the dominant blocking effort from Dominican.
 
"That first set kind of got to us a little bit, but we knew what we had to do to bounce back," said Schneider. "We picked things up from the line, we picked things up in serve receive and they got a lot of blocks so we just started trying to use the hands more often and some roll shots and finesse on the ball and it worked out well for us."
 
SUNY New Paltz is now 11-4 overall and 4-0 at home, but they will take on No. 1 Springfield College at home on Wednesday at 6 p.m. in a rematch of the last two national title games.
 
"We expected to win two games today," said Petrus. "Our chemistry has gotten better, but we still made some mistakes and gave gifts to the other team. I believe we can beat Springfield on Wednesday, but we can't make the same mistakes and we need to serve very well to keep them out of system."