The College of Staten Island men’s volleyball team started their second season this afternoon in a CUNYAC multi-match against City College of New York and Baruch College which took place at Baruch College.  The Dolphins fell in their first match against CCNY 0-3 (23-25, 25-27, 23-25) while also falling to Baruch 0-3 (13-25, 19-25, 7-25) to move to 0-2 on the year.

The first set against the Beavers was an exciting back-and-forth set as both teams wanted to start their season with a tally in the win column. Despite the Dolphins’ efforts they would fall by two points in the first set and that match would set the tone for the following two sets.
The second set was just as much of a battle as the first one was with the Dolphins moving the ball around looking for open spots in the defense to secure a point.  The Dolphins would push the Beavers to the brink in this set and forced the Beavers to go over the 25 point threshold to defeat them.

Staten Island left it all out on the floor in the third and final set and once again took the Beavers to the edge but were once again edged out after another exciting set.

The Dolphins were then slated to take on last year’s CUNYAC Champions, Baruch College.  The men seemed to be out of gas after the grueling match against CCNY and were swept by the Bearcats.

Danil Kukovitskiy recorded five kills and three errors in the match while hitting .111.  CSI faced a tough opponent in the Bearcats and gave it their all but some self-inflicted wounds caused them to fall early to Baruch who hit .375 in the first set.  Brady Ambro led the way for the Bearcats in the match against the Dolphins with 11 kills and three errors while hitting .381.

Song Shin Low did his best to set his teammates up for success against Baruch and was almost able to bring down the giants in their second set but fell short once again.  Low would record 10 assists in the match while also accruing three ball handling errors.  The Dolphins committed five errors in this set, but hit their highest of the match at .120.

The third set didn’t go as planned for the men as the Bearcats turned it up and recorded 14 kills on just two errors.  The Dolphins once again improved their hit percentage from the first set to .100 but were unable to pick up their first win of the season.

The men will return to action tomorrow when they will head to Hoboken, NJ to partake in a tri-match against No. 7 Stevens Tech and Hunter College at 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm.