NEW ROCHELLE, NY — The College of New Rochelle Women’s Volleyball team battled some of the toughest competition they will face this season at the Kean Invitational held this weekend at Kean University in New Jersey. Despite coming up winless in their four matches, the Blue Angels went five sets with Gordon College and took a set from Gettysburg while keeping it close the remainder of the match. CNR fell 3-0 to the both the hosts and also to FDU-Florham.
CNR started the event against the hosts and after a rocky first set that saw the Cougars win 25-10, the Blue Angels made it interesting in the 2nd stanza pushing the match to 25-22. The hosts then held off a charge from CNR in the final frame 25-19, to earn the sweep.
In the second contest Saturday, CNR fell behind Gettysburg 1-0, as they lost 25-17 in the first set. The Blue Angels answered with a solid 25-21 win in the 2nd set, before watching the Lady Bullets hit with accuracy in the final two sets (25-18, 25-16) to win the game.
Sunday saw the Blue Angels and Fighting Scots from Gordon play over two hours and combine for 118 kills in a crazy match that saw two sets go into bonus points. At the end of the battle, the squad from Massachusetts came away with a 3-2 win (27-25, 29-31, 20-25, 26-24, 15-11). New Rochelle had a 2-1 lead going into the 4th set and saw themselves close to sealing a victory when they tied it 22-22 and again 24-24. But Gordon finished the match with a kill and an ace to force OT. In the final set, CNR held a 5-2 lead before letting it slip away after a 9-point Gordon rally.
The final game CNR couldn’t recover from the early loss and fell to FDU-Florham 7-25, 15-25, 15-25.
The Blue Angels will return to the court Monday when they travel to Albertus Magnus for a non-conference tilt. Game-time in New Haven, CT is set for 7:00pm.