The College of Staten Island women’s volleyball team hosted Rutgers-Newark on senior night at the CSI Sports & Recreation Center in Staten Island, NY.  Vanessa Reyes and Jessica Cafiero were both honored before the game.  The Scarlet Raiders would, however, spoil the Dolphins’ senior night with a 3-0 win to improve to 11-15 overall while knocking the Dolphins down to 7-17 for the year.

Match: Rutgers-Newark 3, Staten Island 0 (20-25, 22-25, 13-25)

Senior Vanessa Reyes paced the way for the Dolphins with seven kills on a team-leading 24 attacks. Margaret O’Malley-Rebovich tallied the second highest amount of kills with six on 17 total attacks.  Fellow senior Jessica Cafiero collected 16 assists and three kills on the night. For the Scarlet Raiders, Sue Riley tallied her 2,000th career dig during the second set of tonight’s game.

In the first set, play swung back-and-forth until the Scarlet Raiders were able to gain control of the match with a 5-0 run to take a 13-6 lead. The Dolphins were able to bring it within three when Caitlin Esposito crushed a ball off of a pass from Cafiero.  Esposito would strike again later in the set to bring it within two after a service ace. Morgan Schweitzer would close out the set with a pair of kills to take a 1-0 advantage over the Dolphins.

A tightly contested second set saw the Dolphins fall just shy of knotting the match up at one. Once again the set would go back-and-forth.  CSI would lose the lead for good when an attacking error by Teresa Maresca would give the ball back to the Scarlet Raiders with an 11-10 lead. The Dolphins kept it close as the set began to come to a close after each team had a pair of attacking errors.  Leading by one, the Scarlet Raiders were able to slam the door on the Dolphins’ comeback to take a 2-0 lead in the match.

Staten Island would fall behind after the Scarlet Raiders charged out to a 10-4 lead in the third set. The Dolphins were able to cut it to a two-point deficit but were unable to take the lead at any point in this match. Rutgers-Newark would finish the match on an 8-2 run to sweep the match.

The Dolphins will return to action on Tuesday, October 31 for the CUNYAC Quarterfinal where they will take on Baruch College at 6:00 pm.