New Paltz, NY —The State University of New York at New Paltz held its home opener Saturday in the Hawk Center and enjoyed a pair of 3-0 sweeps against visiting Ramapo College and SUNY Poly.
 
"It felt pretty good. We haven't really played with a crowd in this gym in what now? A year and a half, two years? It felt good," said Hawks junior middle Pat Wing. "It was unfortunate we couldn't practice yesterday due to the weather, but we worked hard. We came out a little slow in the first game, changed a few things and played much better in the second game. And that's that. We played our game well and the outcome was as expected."

SUNY New Paltz (8-3 overall) had a slow start to open up the afternoon. The Roadrunners fought back from a three-point deficit at set point to tie the first at 24, then 25, then 26 and again at 27 before the Hawks claimed the opening set, 29-27.
 
Ramapo took an early 7-6 lead in the first, but with Brendan Spulnick holding serve, SUNY New Paltz went on a 5-0 run to gain control of the set. John Ronan got the stretch started, beating a double block in the middle with Kyle Shaffer picking up one of his 12 assists in the period. Wing added on a point later and Spulnick forced the Roadrunners into back-to-back hitting errors to bring the lead to 10-7.
 
The Hawks extended their cushion to as many as seven in the set, including a 19-12 advantage following another hitting error by Ramapo, but the visitors countered with a 6-0 run to get within one. SUNY New Paltz suffered three-straight hitting errors with Spulnick and Wing's swings hitting the net. Spulnick finally put an end to the run with a kill, but the Roadrunners stayed within one as the two teams traded points.
 
The Hawks earned set point following a serving error and a kill by Evan Kane to bring the score to 24-20, but Ramapo scored four straight points to tie the set. Kane gave SUNY New Paltz set point one last time with a kill at 28-27 and Spulnick made sure to put an end to the first on an ace to give his team the 1-0 lead.
 
SUNY New Paltz rolled in the following two sets. In the second, it ballooned its cushion to as many as nine with Ronan serving two aces in a 5-0 run to give his team a 23-15 advantage. Wing then pushed the Hawks to set point on a kill assisted by Shaffer. Tim Drake then ended the set with an emphatic swing to give the hosts the second, 25-16.
 
 
The third was closer down the stretch, with SUNY New Paltz owning just a one-point lead following a serving error at 16-15. The Roadrunners gave back a point with a service error of their own and Wing doubled down, registering his third ace of the game a point later to push the lead to 18-15. Another long serve cut the score 23-19 for Ramapo, but Spulnick put the Hawks at match point with a kill and Wing closed the game out two points later with another big swing to win the set, 25-21.
 
Shaffer had the offense hitting at a .362 clip, the second most efficient hitting night for the Hawks all season. He finished with a team-best 31 assists to go along with an ace, a block, a kill and four digs. Spulnick was the catalyst offensively, recording 14 points after notching a game-high 12 kills and two aces. Shanley followed with eight kills, two aces and four digs, while Wing added seven kills, a team-leading three aces, four digs and two blocks.
 
SUNY New Paltz came out sharp against the Wildcats in the final game of the evening. The Hawks out-hit Poly, .287-.090, tallied more points (52-26), kills (38-31), aces (8-2), blocks (6-3), assists (34-20) and digs (38-27). Serving hard all day long, Wing totaled five of the team's eight kills in the match to finish with eight on the day.
 
"My strategy for serving in the second game was just not trying to overpower the other team and just kind of going through the motion and putting the ball in play and letting them play with it. If they can return it, they can return it and if not, that's good," Wing said.
 
The Hawks cruised through the first set, 25-13. They held set point at 24-12 and Drake finished off a set from Cam Clark to give his team a quick 1-0 advantage in the match. The second set was tied at 10 until a 3-0 run pushed SUNY New Paltz out in front and carried the advantage the rest of the stanza. Wing nudged the stretch with a kill and held serve to force a bad swing from the Wildcats. Adam Brawn helped the advantage on the next point, getting up for a big block on Poly's Nathan Farnham. Another three-point run extend the difference to five as Brawn registered a kill with Bryan Kaplan subbing in to serve for ace. Wing and Drake then got up for a double block to push the lead to 18-13.
 
"What we talked about going into the second game was mainly energy," Wing said. "The energy in the first game started off down, tired, no excitement after a big point or a big block, anything like that — even though we won, which I am definitely not complaining about — we just talked about what we could have done better and the next game we got to be better and the rest of the season we got to be better, so we just increased our energy, and things happened."
 
 
After the Wildcats cut the score to 23-20, Clark found Christopher Larkin for a kill to put the Hawks a point away from a 2-0 lead. Brawn closed out a point later, finishing on a set from Clark.
 
SUNY New Paltz got out to a quick 6-1 lead to start the third, but a 5-0 swing in the middle of the frame tied the score at 14. The Hawks struggled in the stretch, as they tallied three hitting and one service error to give Poly life. Clark went back to Brawn and the sophomore delivered with another kill before Nathan Petrik got in on the action with back-to-back kills. The Wildcats closed the gap to three, three times down the stretch at 21-18, 22-19 and 23-20, but a service error gave the Hawks match point and fittingly, Brawn ended the game on a kill to complete the second-straight sweep for SUNY New Paltz on its home floor.
Wing finished with a team-best 11.5 points as he hit .750 with six kills on eight attempts, while adding a block and three digs to go along with his career-high five aces. 
 
Drake finished with a team-high eight kills after hitting .462 in the match, while Larkin, Lotz and Brawn followed with six, five and four kills, respectively. Lotz and Larkin also added eight and seven digs, respectively, along with a block apiece. Dan LaRosa finished with a team-leading 12 digs.
 
SUNY New Paltz will enjoy a seven-game stretch in the Hawk Center in their upcoming matches with two scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday against UVC rival Bard and St. Joseph's-Long Island, respectively.
 
"We have Bard on Wednesday, so we have to have two good practices Monday and Tuesday," Wing added. "Bard we should be able to handle them… and St. Joseph's is a really good team this year, and they'll be coming up to us. We went down there last year. A lot of the guys on the team are from Long Island so we know a bunch of those guys, so should be a good game. Competitive, but all fun so we're excited."

Pat Wing Post-Game Interview


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