Union, NJ — The State University of New York at New Paltz opened up the season with two big wins over perennial regionally ranked opponents in Johnson and Wales University and Kean University at the Kean Tri-Match Saturday.
 
The Hawks (2-0) faced the Wildcats to start the day and earned a four-set victory, winning 23-25, 25-19, 25-21, 25-19, before grinding a hard-fought five set victory over the Cougars, 18-25, 25-21, 25-23, 18-25, 17-15.
 
"It's great to get two wins against quality teams in their respective regions but most importantly, we showed a lot of grit and character that started to develop last winter and into summer," said SUNY New Paltz coach Matt Giufre. "And gutting out a five-set win after a tough first match was all execution and desire from every player."
 
The Hawks' first match of 2022 came against a Johnson and Wales team that won 20 games a season ago and earned a spot in an NCAA Regional. They lost the first set with the Wildcats scoring four of the last five points after tying the set at 22, but SUNY New Paltz kept its composure and won out the rest of the way.
 
Opening up the second set with six-straight points, the Hawks never trailed in the second stanza. They ballooned its lead to eight at 14-6 after a five-point run was capped with a kill by Makenzie Bills with Letisha Perez serving through the run. Johnson and Wales came back within five at 23-18, but a serving error gave SUNY New Paltz set point with Bills notching a kill off an assist by Cate DiGiacomo to tie the match at one apiece.  
The Cougars took the initial one point lead on a kill to start the third, but the Hawks earned back serve after a kill by Victoria Konicki and rattled off six straight points to re-take the advantage that they never relinquished the rest of the way. Johnson and Wales got within one at 17-16 following a five-point run, but SUNY New Paltz closed out the set strong and scored on six of the next seven points to get to set point at 24-18. The Cougars closed the gap to as close as 24-21, but Katie Steele ended the second with a kill to give her team a 2-1 lead in the match.
 
The fourth was more back and forth until midway through the set when Haylee Scarincio served through a four-point run to aid in an 18-13 Hawks lead. Following a service error, DiGiacomo served for ace and then served hard again leading to an attacking error by Johnson and Wales to help her team to match point with an attacking error by the Cougars ending the match for SUNY New Paltz's first win of the season.
 
Konicki led the Hawks offensively with 12 points and 11 kills, hitting a productive .435 with one assist and a block. Perez followed with 11.5 points after totaling seven kills, an ace, and accounted for two solo blocks and three more assisted blocks. DiGiacomo led her team with 33 assists and added two kills, seven digs and two blocks. Mia Waddell paced the team defensively with 21 digs and added two aces.
 
SUNY New Paltz offensively hit .194 in the match, while the Cougars hit .051 with the Hawks having five different players with six or more kills in the game.
 
"Our offense has improved tremendously from a year ago and our defense remains strong," Giufre said. "it's a credit to the player's realizing offense was our shortfall and embraces changes to make it better. This week, we've been doing some things to get the starting lineup ready to go and those not yet in it brought their A-games every day and that practice environment is the main reason we came out on top today."
 
Following their win over Johnson and Wales, SUNY New Paltz played back-to-back to face Kean which defeated the Wildcats in straight sets earlier in the day. The Hawks dropped the first set, but battled to win two before the Cougars forced a fifth set that extended to a 17-15 finish.
 
Throughout the match, SUNY New Paltz never lost its composure and showed its maturity from a season ago to continue grinding out each point with a raucous crowd cheering on the home team in the background.
 
The Hawks held the advantage in every category, earning more points (79-73), kills (65-59), blocks (8-5), assists (59-46), digs (93-88) and hit better (.216-.210) then hosting Kean in the match.
 
After SUNY New Paltz took a 2-1 lead, the Cougars scored four-straight points to end the fourth and extend the game into the fifth. SUNY New Paltz trailed early at 6-3 in the fifth, but Bills notched back-to-back kills to get her team within one. A three-point run tied the game at eight with Bills serving the last two points of the run and Steele capping off the surge with a big block to tie the score. Kean answered with consecutive points, but the Hawks finally re-gained the lead with DiGiacomo finding Steele and Williams for consecutive points to push the score to 11-10.
 
The game was tied at 11, and 12-all with Kean giving SUNY New Paltz back the lead after serving long on the ensuing point. DiGiacomo served strong on the following play with Bills and Perez getting up for the double block to push the score to 14-12, but the Cougars weren't going away and tied the match up again, this time at 14. Perez slammed down a kill to re-up the lead for her team, but a strong kill by Kean on the following point created one last stalemate at 15-15.
 
DiGiacomo went back to Bills on the right side and the senior found the gap in the middle of the floor to create match point and gave serve back to the Hawks. Kayleigh Emanuelson then put the finishing touches on the hard-fought victory, serving hard with the Cougars unable to handle with the reception careening out of play for the game-winning ace.
 
"We had a lot of good volleyball then got enhancement from Nikki [Kleinegger] and Kayleigh which propelled us in that Kean match especially," Giufre said. "I think going into next week we understand how to compete without pressing and understand how the small details can make or break you in close matches. But it's only the first weekend and we need to see this a baseline for what's to come. We need to improve across the board, but this is certainly a great start and we're proud of how we came into a tough challenge and played with passion and enthusiasm and mentally strong."
 
DiGiacomo finished with a career-high 55 assists, while adding five digs and a block. Waddell also totaled a career-high with 31 digs, while Konicki had a career game as well putting up career-high in kills (17) and points (19) in the win and added an ace and a block. Williams led the team with 18 kills and followed Waddell with 18 digs.
 
"I think we showed this 2022 team really trusts each other and values coming to the gym every day to get better together," Giufre said. "We've had several intense games in practice and our play elevated today because of it."
 
The Hawks return home for a five-game home stand starting with their home opener Wednesday against Western Connecticut State in the Hawk Center at 7 p.m.

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