Jersey City, NJ (Mar. 20, 2018) – New Jersey City University hit .323 and knocked down 41 kills to defeat the Purchase men's volleyball team, 3-0, Tuesday evening at the John J. Moore Athletics and Fitness Center (Coach Charlie Brown Court). The host Red Devils took the match by set scores of 25-20, 25-15 and 25-15.

For Purchase (5-10), senior Christopher Williams (Valley Stream, NY) had 17 assists and sophomore outside Masaya Funakoshi (Tarrytown, NY) defended 10 digs. Junior middle Luke Kubisch (Delmar, NY) collected seven kills and sophomore right side Andreo Otiniano (Mamaroneck, NY) finished with seven kills and eight digs.

For NJCU (6-9), sophomore middle hitter Julian Moreira hit .429 with 11 kills, while rejecting five blocks and landing a pair of aces. Freshman middle Dave Etienne hit .500 with eight kills and rookie right side Joseph Stawicki put away seven kills, hitting .294 with four blocks. Freshman right side Alexander Umanzor hit .467, swinging for seven kills in 15 attempts with no errors.
 
Sophomore setter Jimmy Vega tallied 15 assists and three aces while freshman setter Luis Ayala added 14 assists in 29 attempts (.483) and two aces. Sophomore outside hitter Edgar Crespo contributed a match-high 13 digs. Junior libero David Penaherrera finished with nine digs.
 
NJCU had a 41-19 margin in kills and hit a season-high .323 as a team (41-11-93) while limiting Purchase to a .024 attack. The Knights also served nine aces and combined for 6.0 blocks.
 
NJCU jumped out to a 7-0 lead in game one and led comfortably the rest of the set. PC got within 19-16 late on a 5-0 run that included three straight aces by Otiniano before the Knights pulled away. NJCU had a 15-6 margin in kills in the game behind Etienne who had five kills in six swings (.833) and Moreira had four kills and three blocks.
 
Up 9-8 in game two, kills by Umanzor and Stawicki and an ace by Umanzor began a 9-2 run that allowed the Knights to cruise to a 10-point win. NJCU scored the final four points of the set, with kills by Umanzor, Stawicki and Moreira all factoring in. NJCU hit .400 in the game with another 15 kills (15-3-30).
 
Six consecutive points in the middle of the third set helped the Knights build a comfortable 18-8 lead that would see the home team to victory.

-contributed by NJCU Sports Information