NEW PALTZ, N.Y. (3/4/15) – The No. 1 Kean University men's volleyball team suffered its first setback of the 2015 season in a road loss to No. 5 SUNY New Paltz on Wednesday night. The Cougars are now 16-1 while New Paltz improved to 9-3.

Kean was down 7-3 to start the night, and had a call reversed at 9-6 to continue its bad luck.

But the Cougars stormed back and took 11 of the next 14 points to go ahead. Part of that long streak was a five-point run with Ron Dunn serving, which got the Kean lead to 17-12.

The Hawks also showed impressive backbone as well in the set, and clawed back to tie the score at 23. Chris Husmann got a kill for the 24th New Paltz point and Jon Lutjen put an end to the first set with another kill at 25-23. Husmann finished the first hitting .333 with four kills.

The next two sets were not as tight, as the home crowd helped the Hawks to 25-18 and 25-20 victories. The loss for the Cougars ended what had been the longest winning streak in the country.

Dunn led Kean with 21 assists and hit .800 on five attempts, and John Cunningham (pictured left) dug eight balls for the Cougars. Bez Arslani and Ed Jedziniak were tops for Kean with eight and seven kills, respectively. Kyle Farley had a good statistical night, hitting .500 with four kills, and freshman Jacob Kauffman served three aces in the three sets.

Christian Smith and Husmann paced the Hawks with eight kills each.

Kean's next matches will be part of a Skyline Conference tri-match on Saturday at Purchase college, where they will also take on the college of Mount Saint Vincent.