Mikalah Curran (#16) in action.
SCARLISA FERNANDEZ / THE QUADRANGLE
By Scarlisa Fernandez, Contributor
Manhattan University women’s volleyball faced NJIT in their first home game Tuesday night. Despite the team’s dedication and teamwork shown, they dropped the game 3-0.
The Jaspers found themselves down early, giving NJIT a 10-3 start in the first set, before they would eventually lose the set. This set the momentum for NJIT, as they won the following two sets, despite efforts by the Jaspers to tighten up the score.
Per an article published on GoJaspers, NJIT entered the match up with MU with a 4-12 record, including a pair of straight set losses to Syracuse, a 3-1 loss to Penn, and a 3-0 win over Le Moyne.
Despite the tough loss, there were positives for the Jaspers to take out of the game. In the second set, freshman Fiona Vandyke entered the match with great energy as the opening outside hitter. Even though the team had some early setbacks, Vandyke felt mentally in it to win it.
“It’s all just mental. I feel like because physically we’re there, I feel like we’re there,” Vandyke said. “I see it in practice all the time. I just think we need to just follow through and push through. That’s the mental part of it; you just kind of have to have short-term memory loss, that play didn’t happen, the next play.”
Vandyke scored several points for the Jaspers in Tuesday’s game. Her ability to put her all into the court is something that did not go unnoticed by her teammates, especially junior setter Sarah Emmons. Throughout the game, Emmons was helpful in maintaining the team’s positive attitude.
“Believing in my teammates and trusting them that they are going to put the ball away with any set that I give them, I just throw myself around a lot to give them opportunities,” Emmons said. “I think our energy had a little bit of a rocky start, but keeping that high intensity and just pushing through the whole game helped us stay in it.”
Assistant coach Sara Atai saw opportunities for improvement from the team throughout the game. She spoke on the potential for the team to cut down on mistakes, and turn them into scoring opportunities.
“I hope to see more errors converting to points,” Atai said. “I liked the performance of Fiona Vandyke, she played very well. I think there were a few moments where we played our game in our proper style, and those moments, I was happy that we were able to do it.”
In the following sets, though, the teams recovered and showed tremendous perseverance. They pushed hard until the end, demonstrating that they were not easily discouraged, even though they lost the match with final scores of 21-25 in the second and third sets. Manhattan was the fifth MAAC team to play NJIT so far this season.
The Jaspers will start MAAC play with three straight games against Sacred Heart, Fairfield and Iona. The first of those games will be on Saturday, Sept. 28.