The College of Staten Island men’s volleyball team came back from two games down to win a 3-2 thriller on the road at York College in what was the CUNYAC finale for both teams. York won the first two games by scores of, 25-18, and 25-21, only to see CSI storm back to record 25-20, 25-18, and 15-9 wins. The win moved CSI to 7-13 overall and 3-5 within the CUNYAC while York finalized their season at 4-23, 1-7, respectively.
Coupled with a John Jay win over CCNY tonight, with the win CSI assured themselves of the No. 5 seed in the upcoming CUNYAC Tournament which begins a week from tonight. Tonight’s win over York was CSI’s first over the Cardinals in program history.
It would not come easy, however, for the Dolphins as they struggled early on. York got up 7-3 in set number one and CSI never led from there. They cut the lead to 16-14 at one point, but the Dolphins suffered a couple of costly errors and were the victim of a serve ace to balloon York’s lead to 19-14 and they would go on to win the set, 25-18.
In the second, a kill by Anthony Vigilante and an ace by Zebin Guo steadied CSI to an early 7-4 edge, but another set of costly attack errors gave York back the lead for the first time in the set, 13-12. CSI later took a 17-16 lead but York would close on a 9-4 run to end the stanza and the CSI threat, powered by two Akeem George kills.
CSI needed to shake things up and they would play much better at the front of the net in the third set. Kills by Mark Palencia and Khaleeq Baum got CSI up early, and then two more Palencia kills got CSI up, 10-7. Later CSI went on a mini 8-3 spurt paced by three more Palencia kills. CSI was forced to ask for time after York scored four-straight to close to 22-19, but the Dolphins slammed the door from there, using two more Palencia kills to take the set 25-20.
With momentum on their side, CSI raced out to a 4-1 lead in the fourth, highlighted by a Vigilante kill. York came back, and there was a series of seven ties, before CSI used a short 4-0 run, using another Vigilante kill and another from Danil Kukovitskiy to score a 17-13 edge. Later, a service ace by Brandon Lei and then a kill by Guo gave CSI the 25-18 win, setting the stage for a fifth and deciding set with the playoffs on the line.
In the fifth, CSI grabbed a quick, 2-0, lead thanks to YC errors, but York then used a 6-2 run to go ahead 6-4, powered by two Larry Moore kills. CSI responded with three straight points to take the lead. Akeem George would tie it with a kill but then CSI reeled off six straight points, finished with two straight Kukovitskiy kills to take a huge, 13-7 edge. Kukovitskiy added another kill, and then Palencia finished the game with an emphatic kill of his own to win it for CSI.
Although unofficial, CSI would gain the No. 5 seed due to a head-to-head win over CCNY this season, as the two are tied for 5th place in the CUNYAC standings. With that, CSI would be travelling to No. 4 John Jay a week from tonight to kick off CUNYAC Tournament play.
Palencia led the way for CSI with 12 kills, followed by Baum’s 11 and Vigilante’s 10. Lei led all with 34 assists, while Ronald Tisbe posted a season high 24 digs. For the Cardinals, they were led by Burrel Kirk Murray’s 14 kills while George added 11. Adil Mariji led York with 34 assists while Paramvir Singh finalized with 27 digs.
Until then, CSI will finalize their regular season on Saturday, when they their seniors in time for a non-conference tri-match against both Wilkes University and Brooklyn College with first serve scheduled for 12:00pm.
