Yesterday, in the same gym for the Jack Kaiser Volleyball Classic, Rutgers missed 17 serves and lost a match it had won at every other position on the floor. This came after a miracle reverse sweep earlier that day as well. On Saturday, the Scarlet Knights missed 10, aced St. John’s eight times and won a match they lost at almost every other position on the floor.
St. John’s out-killed Rutgers 69-63. St. John’s out-dug Rutgers 80-69. Carola Tesoro hit 30 balls to the floor, more than any two Scarlet
Knights combined…
…and St. John’s lost.
This shows that unlike another athletics program at Rutgers, volleyball can win a game that where it definitively not the best team. Rutgers won 25-27, 25-19, 25-23, 24-26, 15-13 on Saturday at Carnesecca Arena in Queens, 181 minutes of volleyball in front of an announced 421, closing the Jack Kaiser Volleyball Classic and the non-conference schedule at 9-3.
The hitting lines finished a thousandth apart, Rutgers at .188 with 63 kills and 28 attack errors on 186 swings, St. John’s at .187 with 69 kills and 34 errors on 187. Rutgers out-blocked the Red Storm 15-10 and out-aced them 8-1, sided out at 56 percent and won 46.9 percent of the rallies it served. Rutgers gave away 40 points on errors. St. John’s gave back 43.
The match is in two of those numbers. Eight aces to one.
One reception error in five sets, and it did not land on Skylar George.
Rutgers Has Set Point in the First & Hits .344 in the Second
St. John’s opened with kills by Kendall White and Lejla Hadiredepovic and a Karis Willow attack error, and Rutgers spent the next 20 rallies climbing. Malia Romes killed three times off Lily Bolen sets between 4-7 and 8-8, Imani Howell terminated three times in four rallies for Rutgers’ first lead at 11-10, and Willow’s ace on Hadiredepovic made it 15-11 at the media timeout.
St. John’s answered with a three-woman block on Aspen Maxwell, a two-woman block on Skylar George and Hadiredepovic’s ace on Kenzie Dyrstad, the only serve Rutgers failed to handle all afternoon. Tesoro took the set from there with kills at 17-16, 17-17, 17-18 and 18-19, and Soheila Cirelli added two off Martina Capponcelli for 19-22.
Rutgers climbed again, Willow killing four times in six rallies off three different setters, and a Tesoro attack error at 25-24 gave Rutgers set point with Howell serving.
Three rallies later the first set belonged to St. John’s.
Tesoro killed on Howell’s serve. Tesoro killed again. White finished it at 25-27. Nine ties, four lead changes, St. John’s hitting .370 for its best set of the match, and Rutgers hitting .226 in a set they had led by four.
The second had one lead change in it and Rutgers made it early. Romes and Howell stuffed Tesoro at 7-6 and St. John’s did not lead again. Brooke Baldwin aced Tesoro for 11-8 and Howell aced Rashanny Solano Smith for 17-10. The Red Storm got four straight on Tesoro’s serve to 20-18, Rutgers took a timeout, and the answer was a Howell kill off Bolen, a Willow and Howell stuff and a Chloe’ Bell attack error for 23-18. Rutgers hit .344 with three attack errors in 32 swings, its cleanest set of the day, and Howell closed it off Baldwin.
Rutgers Hits .000 in the Third & Wins It Anyway
The third was the worst-played set of the afternoon and the most valuable one.
Rutgers led 13-5 without doing much attacking, on Willow’s ace of Solano Smith at 2-0, blocks by Maxwell and Natalie Robinson, by Romes and Howell and by Willow and Howell, a Teodora Stamenkovic attack error and a Baldwin kill off a Willow set. Then Rutgers went five consecutive rallies without landing a swing, with Willow, Howell, Willow, Romes and Romes all hitting out or into the block, and St. John’s scored five straight points without a kill in any of them.
The lead was 16-10 at the media timeout and gone six rallies later, on a Baldwin service error, a Willow attack error, three straight Tesoro kills and a Stamenkovic and Tesoro stuff of Maxwell. Six ties and two lead changes followed. St. John’s took its only lead of the set at 22-23 on a Robinson attack error, Robinson killed off Bolen to tie it, Stamenkovic hit long, and Romes stuffed Hadiredepovic solo at 25-23.
Rutgers hit .000 in the set, 10 kills and 10 attack errors on 31 swings. St. John’s hit minus-.061, nine kills and 11 errors on 33. This is not a mistake for the record, both teams just had a rough go in the third.
Neither team could hit, so the set went to whoever could block, and Rutgers had five team blocks in it.
The fourth had nine ties and three lead changes. Tesoro opened it with three kills in four rallies and Rutgers trailed 8-13 after Bell and White stuffed Howell, then scored four of five on a Howell and Willow block of Tesoro, Kaila Kalama-Bajet’s ace on Katianna Betancur, two St. John’s attack errors and a Maxwell kill for 13-14.
From 14-17 Rutgers scored five of six. George killed off Bolen through a Stamenkovic block error, Romes stuffed Hadiredepovic solo, Romes killed off Bolen, Willow killed off a Howell set through a second Stamenkovic block error to tie it at 18, and Hadiredepovic hit out for a 19-18 lead. Romes and Howell blocked Tesoro at 20-19 and Tesoro hit long at 21-19.
Rutgers was four points from winning the match in four and did not get them. Tesoro killed, Bell killed, Tesoro killed for 21-22, Maxwell tied it at 22, Kalama-Bajet missed a serve, and George killed twice to tie it at 23 and again at 24.
Bolen missed the serve at 24-24.
Hadiredepovic killed off Amanda Caputi two rallies later, and the match went to a fifth.
Nine Ties, Seven Lead Changes & Skylar George Ends It
Rutgers opened the fifth without Karis Willow. Maxwell, Kenzie Dyrstad, Skylar George, Natalie Robinson, Kalama-Bajet, Baldwin and Howell started it, Romes and Bolen came in at 3-2, and Willow came back at 4-4.
Howell aced Betancur at 2-1. Romes killed off Bolen at 5-4, George aced for 6-4 and St. John’s called timeout with Rutgers serving. Romes killed again at 7-5, Romes and Howell stuffed Hadiredepovic at 8-5, and St. John’s used its second timeout in five rallies. Then Rutgers lost four straight, three of them on its own attack errors, and took a timeout trailing 8-9.
Howell killed off Bolen to tie it. Hadiredepovic answered. Willow killed off a Kenzie Dyrstad set to tie it at 10, aced for 11-10, then missed a serve at 11-11.
An ace and a service error, on consecutive turns at the line.
George hit out for 11-12 and killed off Baldwin to tie it at 12. White hit out. Tesoro hit out for match point at 14-12, then killed to save it, and Rutgers took its last timeout at 14-13.
Solano Smith served. George killed off Baldwin. Nine ties and seven lead changes in 28 rallies, and Rutgers needed two match points to finish it. That is how you win a neck and neck game, even when you make mistakes.
Stats Breakdown
Howell was the best player in Scarlet and the most complete on the floor, with 16 kills against four attack errors on 34 swings for .353, nine block assists for a match-high nine total blocks, two aces and 22.5 points. She scored in all five sets and missed one serve all afternoon.
Willow finished with 13 kills and nine attack errors on 47 attempts, .085, the most swings and the most errors of anyone in Scarlet, with three aces against three service errors, six digs and four block assists for 18 points. George matched the kill total on four fewer swings and five fewer errors, 13 on 43 for .209, with an ace, 14 digs and no reception errors. Romes came off the bench for 11 kills on 25 attempts at .280, two solo blocks and four assists for six total blocks and 15 points, and her solo stuff of Hadiredepovic ended the third.
Maxwell hit minus-.045, five kills against six attack errors on 22 swings, a day after going 16-for-24 with a single error against Penn. Robinson added four kills on 13 at .231. The setting split was Baldwin 29, Bolen 22 and Kenzie Dyrstad four, with one assist apiece from Howell, Willow and Romes. Kenzie Dyrstad led Rutgers with 23 digs and Solano Smith led the match with 27.
The serving line reads eight aces against 10 service errors, spread across five servers, with Willow three, Howell two and George, Baldwin and Kalama-Bajet one apiece. Rutgers missed one serve in the first, one in the second, four in the third, three in the fourth and one in the fifth, and served three of its eight aces in the fifth. Tesoro is the reason this went five, with 30 kills on 68 swings, 12 attack errors, .265, 16 digs and a match-high 30.5 points. Hadiredepovic added 13 kills but needed 49 attempts and 10 errors to get them, .061. White was the efficient one at .321, 11 kills on 28 with four block assists, and Stamenkovic hit .000 on 12 swings and blocked eight. Caputi had 40 of St. John’s
What Worked (and One Thing That Didn’t)
The serve, yet again.
Eight aces against 10 service errors, one afternoon after four aces against 17, in the same building against a team from the same borough. Five different Scarlet Knights aced somebody, three of the eight came in the fifth set, including Willow’s at 11-10 to put Rutgers ahead in a set that changed hands seven times, and the risk Rutgers has been taking at the line since August finally bought something.
Serve receive bought more. Rutgers committed one reception error in five sets and gave up one ace, Hadiredepovic’s on Kenzie Dyrstad in the first. George, who has been hunted in serve receive all season and who took two of the three Penn aces on Friday, was not aced once and dug 14 balls.
A month of the same complaint, answered in 181 minutes.
The block was the third thing. Rutgers had 15 team blocks to St. John’s 10, nine assists from Howell, six total blocks from Romes and four assists from Willow. In the third set, when Rutgers hit .000 and St. John’s hit minus-.061, five team blocks were the difference between a 2-1 lead and a 1-2 deficit.
The one thing that did not work was the attack, and specifically how many swings it took to get 13 kills out of Karis Willow. Willow took 47 of Rutgers’ 186 attempts and missed nine of them, hitting .085 in a match decided by two points in a fifth set. On Friday against Penn, she had six kills on 14 swings with one error and seemed primed for a run of consistency, being one of the best players for Rutgers in the loss. On Saturday she started the fifth set on the bench, but she was back on the floor by 4-4, killed the ball at 10-10 and served the ace at 11-10. Willow is the clearest single representation of this Rutgers team, sometimes very good, sometimes very shaky, and never clean for a full match.
Rutgers is 9-3 and done with the non-conference. Big Ten play opens on the road next weekend, at No.1 Nebraska on Friday. Put it simply, this kind of performance cannot happen against Nebraska if Rutgers wants to leave Omaha with an upset win, or a five-set loss.
Back-to-back afternoons in the same gym produced a loss in which Rutgers was better than its opponent at everything but serving, and a win in which it was worse than its opponent at everything but serving.
The Scarlet Knights still have not been the same team twice, but they are 9-3 anyway.
