CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The Lesley University men's volleyball team dropped the season series to Newbury College, 3-0, in New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) action, Tuesday evening. Junior outside hitter Joshua Thorne (Oxford, Conn.) posted a .364 attack percentage tallying 11 kills to lead the Nighthawks to the win.
Lesley drops to 1-19 on the season and 0-9 in the conference while Newbury improves to 7-14 and 4-7 in the NECC.
Newbury wasted little time jumping out to a quick 1-0 match advantage taking the first set, 25-8. First year middle blocker Matt Sepe (Cranston, R.I.) was nearly perfect from the floor notching a set-high four kills on six attempts. Classmate Oscar Chavez (Independence, Ore.) paced the offense with 10 assists.
In the second set, sophomores Steven Newman(Natick, Mass.) and John Gersbeck (Westerly, R.I.) gave the Lynx a one-point, 4-3, lead recording a block early but the Nighthawks answered. Newbury responded with a mini 4-1 run to take a 7-5 lead but they could never pull away.
Lesley remained resilient chipping their way back. Senior middle hitter Jacob DiDomenico (North Providence, R.I.) hit .333 in the second set tallying three kills on six attempts with just one error while fellow senior Jason Hulteen (Galena, Ohio) tallied three. It was not enough as the Nighthawks edged out the Lynx, 25-18, to take the two match advantage.
Hitting .316 as a team in the final set the Nighthawks began to pull away. Thorne was nearly perfect from the floor tallying four kills on seven attempts for a .571 attack percentage while first year Tyler Polite (Hyde Park, Mass.) registered two block assists to take the final set, 25-13.
DiDomenico led the Lynx tallying a team-high seven kills and two solo blocks while Hulteen followed up with five kills of his own. Junior setter Karuna Chiemruoum (Cranston, R.I.) paced the offense with 14 kills.
Newbury senior middle blocker Nile Fox (Hampton, Va.) posted a .500 attack percentage tallying eight kills on 12 attempts with two errors while Sepe followed up with seven kills to hit .375 on the night. Chavez was a court general of the offense recorded a match-high 27 assists.
The Lynx return to the hard-court on Thursday April 6th when they host Eastern Nazarene College at 8:00 p.m. The Nighthawks will also be in action on Thursday when they travel across town to Pine Manor College for two matches starting at 6:00 p.m.