Springfield, MA — The State University of New York at New Paltz national title hopes came to an end Saturday at the hands of the top ranked team in the country, Springfield College.
 
The Hawks (20-7 overall), playing the Pride for the third time this season, couldn't slow down Springfield offensively, as the hosts hit above .500 in the match to aid in the 3-0 win.
 
"This was good competition," said SUNY New Paltz coach Radu Petrus in the post-game press conference. "I think we had more opportunities and we missed easy balls and gave more confidence to Springfield and actually, they deserve [the win]. They are a better team, also with a home game and a lot of people in the bleachers. They dominated the game."
 
Tied at 16 in the first set, the Pride scored eight of the next 10 points to get to set point, tallying five kills in the stretch with Giancarlo Carrion serving back-to-back aces to push the score to 24-18. The first ended on a pair of serving errors to give Springfield an early lead winning the first, 25-19.
 
"Both teams wanted to push each other out of system," Petrus said. "That was our target to put their opposite out of system and it didn't work as we expected today. Springfield didn't start very tough in the first set, but to the end they came back with good serves." 
The Pride jumped ahead early in the second, but the Hawks worked their way to tie the score at 19 thanks to a kill by Chris Shanley from Cam Clark, followed by an ace from Pat Wing. With SUNY New Paltz establishing some momentum, the Pride called a timeout to regroup and answered with six-straight points to win the set.
 
SUNY New Paltz was in a seven-point hole in the third set following a five-point run by Springfield, but worked back to cut the score to 17-21 with Kyle Shaffer capping the surge with a kill. Consecutive serving errors brought the score to 23-19 with the Pride getting to match point following a kill by Brennen Brandow. Shanley recorded a kill on the next point to side-out, but Springfield ended the match with a kill by Jarrett Anderson to close out the third, 25-20.
 
Shanley led his team with 10 points on eight kills, an assist, an ace, a block and three digs. Brendan Spulnick followed with 7.5 points on six kills, an ace and two digs. Shaffer added five kills and 10 assists, while Clark had 15 assists.
 
"We knew we played them tough down in New Paltz, we lost in four, so we knew we had the ability to come and win this match," Clark said. "When we came here the second time, it was probably one of the worst matches we played. We knew it couldn't get much worse from there, so we knew if we came in with the mindset, we had nothing to lose. Springfield was supposed to beat us right now and we're just going to give it our all and we came up just a little short. I wish we had a couple plays back, but I'm proud to say we really fought hard tonight."
 
The Hawks 2022 campaign ends in the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Tournament. Entering the year, they were unranked after graduating three All-Americans, but they continued to improve as the season got going and finished undefeated in United Volleyball Conference action to earn the top seed in the conference tournament

Although SUNY New Paltz fell short of capturing the UVC Championship, the program still earned one of five at-large bids into the NCAA Tournament and as of April 12 landed eighth in the country according to AVCA. The Hawks defeated Marymount in four sets Friday before being pit against the Pride, who had defeated them twice during the regular season.
 
"I was just so proud of the guys, how we came together throughout this season especially how we started out in California," Shanley said. "After that trip, a lot of people wrote us off pretty early. It took us awhile to get back into the rankings and we fought and clawed our way back this season. After the UVC Finals we got bailed out and we got a second life. They picked us to come to the tournament for a reason. We fought hard, made it to the quarterfinals and there's no shame in that. Springfield is a great team."

Post-Game Press Conference


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