Junior Daniel Liberto totaled five kills, three digs and a solo block in the fifth and deciding game to give New Paltz the 3-2 (27-30, 30-12, 23-30, 30-26, 15-8) win over Emmanuel in the third place match of the Hawks Invitational.
Liberto finished the match with 16 kills, eight digs and three blocks. Jake Moore paced the offense with 22 kills and 15 digs. Ryan Huberty tallied 12 kills, 14 digs and Kevin Stross finished with 10 kills. Sophomore Andrew Cassius dished out 56 assists and 10 digs.
New Paltz tied the fifth set at 6-6 on a block by Liberto, and took the lead when Liberto registered two consecutive kills, followed by a service ace from Huberty, another kill by Liberto and an attack error on Emmanuel for the 11-6 margin. The Hawks completed their scoring on a Moore block, a kill from Liberto, a kill from Stross and a final block by Alex Jackson.
The first set was tied 26-26 before New Paltz made four errors to give Emmanuel the go ahead lead. The Hawks cruised through set two as Moore tallied seven of his kills and Alex Jackson added four. New Paltz trailed 29-20 in the third set and started a run but it was a little to late to over come the deficit. The fourth set saw New Paltz lead 19-18 before going on a 4-0 run to break open the set, however Emmanuel did come back to trail 27-26 but two kills by the Hawks and an error on Emmanuel forced the fifth game.
New Paltz improves to 2-1 on the season and will return to the court on Thursday January 22nd when they host Hunter College at 7pm.
Other Scores from Saturday:
MIT def Elms 3-0 (30-23, 30-28, 30-28)
Sacred Heart def Eastern Mennonite 3-0 (33-31, 30-27, 34-32)
Sacred Heart wins the Hawk Invite and Kalani Efstathiou was named the Tournament’s Most Valuable Player.
