Six days ago Rutgers swept Rider without Skylar George or Imani Howell playing, and the question out of that night was whether this team needed their best players in order to look like itself. Friday morning in Queens it got both answers in one match.
Rutgers lost the first two sets to Bryant and won the last three, 17-25, 23-25, 25-12, 27-25, 15-10, to open the Jack Kaiser Classic at Carnesecca Arena. It is the first 0-2 comeback of the season, and it came after Rutgers trailed 20-24 in the fourth
with Bryant serving for the match.
The margins were nothing where matches usually get decided. Rutgers hit .174 to Bryant’s .163 and out-killed the Bulldogs 58-57. Everywhere else it was lopsided: 16.0 blocks to 6.0, 10 aces to three, a 63.3 percent side out to 57.5. Bryant, the defending America East regular-season champion, out-dug Rutgers 72-66 and it did not save them.
Bryant needed one more point five separate times in the fourth set and never got it.
Eight Attack Errors In The First & A 23-20 Lead That Did Not Hold
Rutgers led 2-1 on an Aspen Maxwell kill and never led again in the set. Three ties, two lead changes, all inside the first eight points. Rutgers hit .081, 11 kills against eight attack errors on 37 swings, while Bryant hit .306, the best set of the night by a distance. Madison Koeller ended it with an ace on Karis Willow.
The second was the one Rutgers should have had. Bryant led from the opening service error to 17-16, and then Willow served. Howell and Maxwell stuffed Kaitlin Curran to tie it, Skylar George put away two straight off Brooke Baldwin sets, and Rutgers led 19-17. Maxwell terminated off Baldwin at 20-18 and 21-18, Zharia Harris-Waddy at 22-19, Malia Romes off a Lily Bolen set at 23-20.
Bryant scored the last five points. Layla Olatunde terminated off a Madison Keem set, Romes hit long, Kalia Alvarado aced Kaila Kalama-Bajet to level it, Olatunde and Curran stuffed Romes for set point, and Curran finished off a Carrina Barron set. Rutgers took 55 swings in the set and made 10 attack errors, both match highs.
Rutgers led 23-20 and did not score again.
A 25-12 Third, Then Five Match Points Saved In The Fourth
The third was tied at two and at three and Bryant led 2-3. Rutgers won 22 of the last 31 rallies. Bolen aced Curran at 5-3, George terminated off a Kenzie Dyrstad set, Howell stuffed Hannah Jackson solo at 9-5, and it was 11-5 before Bryant called time. Willow aced for 15-7. Rutgers hit .333 with one attack error on 21 swings.
Bryant hit .000, 10 kills and 10 errors on 30 swings, and handed over 10 of Rutgers’ 25 points on attack errors, service errors and a shanked set. Bolen served out the back end: from 19-9 she aced Curran, Natalie Robinson terminated off a Bolen set, Koeller put a set out of play, and Bolen aced Barron. Bryant gave up four reception errors in the set after one across the first two.
Rutgers did not trail after the fourth point.
The fourth had six ties and three lead changes, more of both than any other set, and for most of it Bryant was the better team. Rutgers trailed 8-14, then 13-19, then 15-20. The climb back came off the two setters in alternation, Avery Jesewitz and Maxwell and Howell and George off Baldwin from 16-20 to 19-22, Robinson off Bolen at 20-23. Then Alvarado killed off a Keem set for 20-24 and Bryant had match point.
That match point was held for five rallies. Jesewitz and Robinson stuffed Nina Gavin. Jesewitz and Howell stuffed Gavin again. Kenzie Dyrstad aced. Howell terminated to level it at 24. Curran’s kill went off a Romes block error for 24-25, Romes answered off a Bolen set, Howell stuffed Brookelyn Talmadge solo for set point, and Curran hit long. The last seven Rutgers points were three blocks, two kills, an ace and a Bryant error.
The Fifth Was Over By 8-5
The fifth was settled early. George killed three of Rutgers’ first four points for 4-1, Bryant answered with four straight to lead 4-5, and Rutgers never trailed again once Robinson leveled it. George aced Alvarado for 8-5 and a Bryant timeout. Maxwell and Howell stuffed Curran at 11-8, Robinson blocked Jackson solo at 13-9, and Romes ended the match off a Bolen set. Rutgers hit .381 in the set, 10 kills and two errors on 21 swings.
Six of Rutgers’ 10 kills in the fifth set were Skylar George’s.
Rutgers arguably had one of the most impressive comebacks of the season, and provided a newfound sense of hope in a game that loomed of disaster.
Stats Breakdown
Skylar George finished with 22 kills on 53 swings against six errors for .302, with three aces, 14 digs, a solo block and an assist, and 26.5 points. Nobody else in the match cleared 14. She took 31 percent of Rutgers’ swings and produced 38 percent of the kills.
Romes was next in Scarlet with 11 kills on 30 swings at .167, all off the bench, and Willow had seven on 16 at .188. Maxwell hit .000, five kills against five errors on 26, and was still one of the two best Scarlet Knights at the net with six block assists. Robinson had five kills, a solo block and seven assists for eight total blocks, more than anyone in the match, and Howell added four kills and 5.0. Jesewitz played two sets for a kill and two block assists, both in the fourth with Bryant holding match point.
Baldwin set 25 and Bolen 23, the usual split, and Bolen also served four aces and dug 10 balls. Kenzie Dyrstad led everyone in Scarlet with 19 digs. Bryant’s attack ran through Curran and Alvarado and neither one hit: Curran 12 kills and eight errors on 39 swings for .103, Alvarado 11 and six on 38 for .132 with a match-high 18 digs. Olatunde was the most efficient hitter in the building at .583, seven kills and no errors on 12 swings, and Bryant went to her 12 times in five sets.
What Worked (and One Thing That Didn’t)
The block.
Rutgers finished with 16.0 total blocks to Bryant’s 6.0 and the gap widened as the match went, 2.0 in the first set to 5.0 in the fourth. The two that mattered were the back-to-back stuffs of Gavin at 21-24 and 22-24, both with Jesewitz, who had not been on the floor until that set.
The serve, and for once it was not also the liability. Ten aces against seven service errors, eight of the aces in the last three sets, Bolen with four and George with three. Bryant’s passers cracked with 10 reception errors, four on Curran and three on Alvarado, which is to say the two players Bryant needed swinging were the two it kept having to bail out. Rutgers gave up three all match, and George, the passer opponents have spent a month hunting, gave up none.
Simply, Skylar George.
The outside hitter from Houston, who redshirted at Utah, spent two seasons at Syracuse, was the Rutgers offense on Friday. Twenty-two of the 58 kills were hers, six of the 10 in the fifth, three of the 10 aces. Rutgers won this because it blocked and served better than Bryant did, and it was still there to win because George kept terminating when nobody around her could.
The one thing that did not work was the attack in the first two sets. Twenty-eight kills against 18 attack errors on 92 swings is .109, and it lasted long enough to lose two sets to a team hitting .229 over the same stretch. Across the last three Rutgers hit .250 and held Bryant to .096. Same players, same morning, same building.
Rutgers is 8-2 and has won five straight, with Penn later today on Friday at Carnesecca Arena and St. John’s on Saturday to close the Jack Kaiser Classic and the nonconference schedule. Big Ten play opens on the road at No. 1 Nebraska on Sept. 25 and Iowa on Sept. 26. The useful part of a first comeback is not that it happened, it is that the block and the serve held when the attack did not, and neither Nebraska nor Iowa is going to hand over 10 reception errors.
