NEW YORK, N.Y. (2/24/13) – Senior Steve Vahalla earned his 1,000th kill in a Kean uniform and led the Kean University men's volleyball team (9-6) to an upset of No. 9 Baruch College (8-3) in five sets to highlight Sunday's action in New York City. The Cougars also fell to No. 4 Stevens Institute of Technology earlier on the day.
The match against Baruch was thrilling. The Cougars took the first two sets, but the homestanding Bearcats roared back to tie the match with a 26-24 victory in the third and another win in the fourth to set up the rubber game.
Fittingly, the fifth set started out tight; the score was tied at one, two, four and five until Vahalla ripped off three-straight service points to force a Baruch timeout. The teams traded a few more points until Michael Fox served up four-straight points to take an 11-7 lead. Kean continued to maintain its lead until Ron Dunn and Kyle Farley teamed up for the match-clinching block.
Vahalla led the way with 35 kills on the day and was named Second-Team All-Baruch Volleyball Invitational. John Cunningham, Farley and Ed Jedziniak came in neat order with 18, 17 and 16 kills, respectively. Dunn had 46 assists and Alex Barnhard (pictured left) dished out 36 for the Cougars, and Tom Kemmerle dug out 17 balls to lead Kean in that category.
The Cougars will be back in action on Wednesday at the Sage Colleges at 7 p.m.
