This past weekend, men’s volleyball (12–11, 6–3 EIVA) picked up two solid wins against No. 14 Charleston (22–4, 5–3). With these two wins, the Tigers are now second in the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (EIVA), while the Golden Eagles have dropped down to third.
The first match played out pretty smoothly for the Tigers, as they were able to glide past the Golden Eagles with a 3–0 sweep. Princeton was in the driver’s seat throughout the whole game, and the Tigers won every set by at least a three-point margin.
It was an overall solid game for the Tigers. Princeton simply outperformed Charleston in every aspect, and their 43 kills nearly doubled the number of kills (25) recorded by the Golden Eagles.
Huge contributors to the game-one win against Charleston were junior outside hitter Ben Harrington and senior hitter Brady Wedbush. Harrington had a game-high 13 kills, and Wedbush added 10 kills of his own. Sophomore rightside hitter Nyherowo Omene also played a key role in the Tigers’ success and put up seven kills and three blocks.
Coming off of a loss against George Mason, the Tigers learned from their mistakes and pushed themselves to be a better team against Charleston.
“We really just took that initial sting of losing to a team we just beat and turn[ed] up our aggression in practice leading up until this match,” Omene told The Daily Princetonian. “As a result, the Charleston match felt very comfortable because we spent the entirety of practice training for that.”
The second game played out in a similar fashion for the Tigers, as they were able to get a 3–1 win against the Golden Eagles.
While the Tigers may have won the game, all four sets were well-fought and ended within a three-point margin.
Despite the first set being back and forth, Princeton was able to pull out the win. The set ended 25–22 in favor of the Tigers as Harrington propelled the team with six kills and three aces alone just in this set.
The second set was another close battle. Both teams came out firing, but eventually, Charleston was able to pull through and gave Princeton their first set loss of the weekend.
Fortunately for the Tigers, they were able to bounce back for sets three and four. Princeton took an early 11–8 lead in the third set and continued to ride that momentum throughout the rest of the set, taking a 27–25 set win from Charleston.
In the fourth set, the Tigers came back from a six-point deficit, but still later found themselves down 24–22. Despite being one point away from a set loss, Princeton was able to rally and score four straight points to end the match and hand Charleston their fourth loss of the season.
Harrington again led the team in kills, with 17, and also contributed three aces. Along with Harrington, Omene added 10 kills and first-year blocker Ryan Vena had eight kills and six blocks.
The Tigers will return to Dillon Gymnasium on Friday, April 14 to face off against another EIVA foe, NJIT (8–16, 2–7).
Allison Ha is a contributing writer for the Sports section at the ‘Prince.’
Please direct any corrections requests to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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