ROCHESTER, N.Y. (4/26/13) – The No. 14 Kean University men's volleyball team ended its 2013 season in the NCAA Division III Men's Volleyball Championship Quarterfinals with a loss to No. 1 Springfield College on Friday.

Coming into the match Kean had 14 wins in a row, while the Pride had an impressive 23-match winning streak but had not played in a fortnight.

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The teams traded the first eight points of the match, but Kean got caught in a couple bad rotations. Springfield capitalized and set off two different runs of four or more points and took set one.

In the second, Kean got its first lead of the day by scoring the first point and Ron Dunn followed with an untouched ace to give the Cougars a 2-0 lead. On the next service rotation, Steve Vahalla also had an ace to make the score 4-2. Krzysztof Kucza followed with a tremendous solo block to give Kean a 7-4 lead and force Springfield to call timeout.

Kean would pull ahead by a few points, and the Pride would battle back to tie. This kept recurring until Springfield took a brief 18-17 lead.

Back-to-back aces by Dunn and another huge kill by Vahalla swung the momentum back to Kean and gave the Cougars a 21-18 advantage. From that point, however, Springfield played truly impressive volleyball, put away nearly every attack and came up with a few miraculous digs to boot. The Pride held the Cougars to just one more point in the set and Springfield took set two 25-22.

Kean raced out to a 4-1 advantage in the third set, but Springfield methodically marched back into it, scoring the next five points to take a 6-4 lead. The two sides were then tied at seven, eight, 10, and 12 before the Pride scored five in a row to put themselves in the driver's seat. They would hold on to win 25-17 to take the match in three sets.

Kean out-blocked the Pride and both teams had the same number of service aces in the match (seven), but the kill total (44-25) was the difference in the match.

Kean ends its third varsity season with a 26-8 record and in the NCAA Tournament for the second-straight year. The two-time defending Skyline Champions are one of only six schools that have qualified for the NCAA Championship in both years of its existence.