Seven matches in, Rutgers still had not answered the only question worth asking about it: which team is this?
The one that swept Arkansas on Sept. 1 for the program’s first win over an SEC opponent since 2001, then came home Tuesday and out-hit LIU .288 to .066 in a match that stopped being competitive somewhere in the first ten minutes? Or the one that hit .242 in Nashville and lost anyway, and that three nights later dropped a set it led 24-21 with three chances to close, against a team that finished
the night hitting .066?
Stony Brook did not particularly care which one showed up.
The Seawolves came to Jersey Mike’s Arena on Thursday at 4-3, on a three-match winning streak, and with the CAA’s reigning offensive player of the week in Ella Sanders. That is a real opponent, and it is the one Rutgers needed. LIU could not punish a bad passing rotation. Stony Brook can.
Rutgers swept them anyway, 25-18, 25-21, 25-15, in an hour and twenty-five minutes in front of 426 people, and this time the scoreline is the story if you read all the way to the end of it. The Scarlet Knights out-hit Stony Brook .301 to .133, out-killed them 47-28, and sided out at 60.7 percent to the Seawolves’ 43.8. There were four ties and four lead changes in the entire match, all of them in the first two sets. Rutgers led wire to wire in the third.
Sanders, who came in off 50 kills and a tournament MVP, finished with eight kills, six errors and a .074 hitting percentage on 27 swings. She also led all players in total errors with eight.
Baldwin Serves, Sanders Misses, & Rutgers Starts Hot
Stony Brook led the opening sets for a total of four points across two sets, and never by more than one.
The first set was decided by point six as Imani Howell served, Aspen Maxwell scored, Howell aced Ella Sanders, Leimaile Lasike hit long and Maxwell stuffed Sanders solo for 5-1. Rutgers was up 10-4 before the Seawolves’ first timeout. The one stretch that looked close got there on Rutgers’ own serving, with three service errors in the middle of the set let Stony Brook back to 12-10, and it did not last. Brooke Baldwin served three straight to turn 19-16 into 22-16, and Howell ended it 25-18.
The second set opened the same way and then broke the same way. Kaila Kalama-Bajet served four straight points in which Stony Brook did not put a ball on the floor with an attack error Damisi Osibodu, block by Howell and Maxwell on Sanders, attack error Osibodu, ace. Then Zayda Fuertez and Rayanne Wheat aced Rutgers in the span of a few rallies, two reception errors, and the Seawolves had their only lead of the set at 7-6.
It survived three points.
Baldwin went back and served five in a row to turn 11-9 into 16-9, a run made almost entirely of Stony Brook mistakes, with a block error, a bad set, two attack errors, one Howell kill.
Rutgers hit .242 in that second set. That is the exact figure from Nashville. Stony Brook hit .086 and made nine attack errors on 35 swings, so the number that lost a match two weeks ago was more than enough here. The Seawolves did close from 21-14 to 24-21 before Karis Willow finished it 25-21.
Sanders is the reason, and Rutgers is the reason for that. The CAA’s reigning offensive player of the week has seven kills against six errors on 22 swings, .045, and a match-high eight total errors. Five of those kills came in the first set.
Rutgers had five service errors against two aces through two sets, which is the only thing here that had not changed.
Rutgers Hits .351 & Stony Brook Never Leads Again
Stony Brook led 5-3 in the third set. That was the last time the Seawolves were ahead in this match, and it lasted about four minutes.
Brooke Baldwin went back to serve at 5-5 and did not come off until Rutgers led 5-12. Aspen Maxwell killed, Karis Willow killed off a Kenzie Dyrstad set, Imani Howell killed unassisted, and Baldwin aced. Five straight points, and the Seawolves used their timeout in the middle of it without effect. Taryn Su answered with an ace of her own to make it 8-12, but Howell then served five in a row to take it from 9-15 to 9-20 — three Skylar George kills, a Natalie Robinson kill, and a Robinson solo block on Quinn Anderson to close it. From 5-5, Rutgers scored 15 of 19.
The set finished 25-15. Rutgers hit .351 with 18 kills on 37 swings and served three aces against two errors, the only set all night in which the aces outnumbered the errors. Stony Brook hit .143 and managed seven kills. George’s ace at 13-24, off a Hanna Berkefelt reception error, brought up set point, and Willow put the match away 25-15 after two attack errors of her own gave Stony Brook a brief stay.
Stats Breakdown
Imani Howell led everyone with 11.5 points on nine kills, two errors and 16 swings, a .438 clip, plus a match-best three blocks and an ace. Skylar George matched her kill total on 25 attempts and hit .200. Aspen Maxwell had eight kills at .333 with three blocks, and Malia Romes was the most efficient of the front-row rotation off the bench with seven kills at .333. Natalie Robinson hit .556 without a single attack error.
Brooke Baldwin ran 21 assists, Lily Bolen 18, and the split kept Stony Brook honest in a way it had not been on Tuesday. Kenzie Dyrstad dug 14 balls. Rutgers put up six blocks to Stony Brook’s five, and no block errors against the Seawolves’ one.
On the other side, only two Seawolves finished above .286 on more than a swing or two: Hanna Berkefelt at .333 on 12 attempts and Mercedes Motton at .333 on six. Quinn Anderson hit .077. Avari Amstutz and Leimaile Lasike both finished in the negative. Zayda Fuertez dug 11 and Taryn Su set 11.
What Worked (And One Thing That Didn’t)
The serving finally arrived.
Rutgers went 3-for-2 on aces to errors in the third set and finished the match with five aces against seven errors, which is not a clean ratio but is the first time this season the aces have paid for themselves. Brooke Baldwin’s five-point run in the second set and her four-point run in the third, the one that took a 5-8 deficit to 5-12, including an ace of her own, were the two stretches that decided this match. Skylar George’s ace at 13-24 was the set point that ended it.
The blocking was the other thing. Howell and Maxwell were at the net on Sanders from the opening rally of the first set, and by the third the Seawolves had stopped trying to go through her. Sanders took 27 swings and 22 of them came in the first two sets.
The one thing though was that seven service errors is still seven service errors, and Rutgers gave away three of them in the first set alone at a point when the match was still theoretically live. Three receive errors, too, all in the third set — Dyrstad twice, Kalama-Bajet once. Against Stony Brook it cost nothing. It cost a set on Tuesday.
Rutgers is 5-2 and stays on the banks, with Delaware up next on Friday at Jersey Mike’s Arena, the third stop of a four-match homestand that closes with Rider on Saturday. Stony Brook was the best team Rutgers will see in this building this week, and Rutgers beat it in three without ever trailing by more than one. The swings are still not coming from the opponent. They are coming from the serve and from serve receive, and until those two things stop moving, so will everything else. On Thursday, for the first time, they mostly held still.
