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Volleyball Opens Final Regular Season Week Thursday Against NJIT
April 14, 2010 | Men's Volleyball
The margin between the first major goal and outright disaster wasn't much more than a point here and a point there. Some would have thought the 2010 Princeton men's volleyball team would have been too young, too inexperienced to win so many of those big points.
They would have been wrong.
Starting Thursday night with the final home match of the regular season, Princeton has two matches remaining before opening the 2010 EIVA playoffs as the No. 2 seed. This is the highest Princeton has been seeded in the Eastern championships, and also assures the Tigers that they would not see Penn State until the championship match.
Of course, that is a long ways away. The championships will begin Saturday, April 24 at 7 p.m. against either Sacred Heart or Harvard in a quarterfinal match. Those teams are vying for second place in the Hay Division behind the red-hot Rutgers-Newark Scarlet Raiders, who have won 12 of 14 matches since losing 3-1 at Princeton on Feb. 19. Sacred Heart and Harvard will meet tomorrow night, with the winner assured of finishing second in the division.
With a victory, Princeton would play the winner of a quarterfinal match between George Mason and Rutgers-Newark on April 29 in one EIVA semifinal. Princeton clinched second place in the division by sweeping Mason on the road last weekend; it was the Tigers' first Tait win of the season that didn't go the full five sets. In fact, six of Princeton's 10 Tait matches went the distance.
Princeton will spend this week in the Hay Division, beginning tonight with NJIT and concluding Saturday at Rutgers-Newark. Princeton swept NJIT on the road earlier this season, with junior Vincent Tuminelli leading the team with 15 kills. In a 3-1 victory over Newark on Feb. 19, senior middle Jeff McCown recorded 13 kills and 10 blocks to lead the way.