Rutgers University-Newark completed its 2022 Continental Volleyball Conference season with an undefeated run through both the regular season and postseason, capping play with the CVC Tournament title, the program's first since 2015. The Scarlet Raiders entered the tournament as the top seed, and host of both the semifinals and championship match, having gone 8-0 in the regular season before sweeping through the semifinals and then unseating two-time defending champion Southern Virginia University 3-1 in the championship match.
The top-two seeded teams met up on Saturday for the championship after picking up wins in last night's semifinals matches. A kill by Eric Hollenbach started the match for Rutgers-Newark and the Scarlet Raiders did not look back; holding the lead for the entire opening set. They built up a 15-11 lead after an ace from Tyler Sheaffer but Southern Virginia did respond to bring the score to within one at 18-17. That would be the closest the Knights could get however as the Scarlet Raiders answered with kills by Robert Long and Andrew Zaleck. Daniel Quay put a ball down the middle to close out the set for a 25-22 win.
The Scarlet Raiders scored the opening point of the second set as well, this time on an ace from Arvind Kumar. The second set featured just three ties, all coming early on. With the score tied at three Rutgers-Newark rolled off three straight points behind back-to-back kills by Quay and a Knight attack error. Up 13-11, the Scarlet Raiders ticked off five straight points with Zaleck sparking the run with two straight kills. The Knights attempted to cut the rally short by going to All-American Nahuel Recabarren but the Scarlet Raiders threw up a double block by Eric Hollenbach and Arvind Kumar to keep the momentum for the Scarlet Raiders. They then carried that lead to the final set score of 25-17.
The two-time defending champions finally put it together in the third set, winning 25-22. The third set played much closer with eight ties and two lead changes. The Knights scored first off a Scarlet Raider error, a preview of what would befall the Scarlet Raiders for the rest of the set; poor hitting. The Scarlet Raiders hit a match-low .056 in the set with 11 kills and 9 errors. The Knights took advantage, opening up a 4-1 lead. With the score tied at 15, a kill by Recabarren gave the Knights the lead for good in the set with Recabarren ending it on his 7th kill of the 3rd set alone.
In the 4th, Southern Virginia opened with the first point for a second straight set and had hopes of preparing their win in the prior frame. However, the Scarlet Raiders' offense shook off their miscues from the previous set and jumped out to a 5-3 lead behind the duo of Zaleck and Quay. The Knights took a 10-9 lead after a kill by Candland but that would be their last lead of the match.
Hollenbach drew the score even and Robert Long followed with a kill for the Scarlet Raider lead. Arvind Kumar tacked on back-to-back aces that shifted the momentum clearly in favor of the Scarlet Raiders. With a two-point lead, Kumar took his skills to the net where he put down back-to-back kills to boost the score to 20-16. Another ace, this time by Derek Au, brought the Scarlet Raiders to within one point of a title.
Au served for championship point and the Knights looked like they would extend the set on a powerful hit to the back row. However, a diving Daniel Quay to his left near the backline kept the ball alive where Au then delivered a backset to Zaleck who buried the ball for the win.
Rutgers-Newark ranked #5 in the nation, improves to 22-3 on the season, and earns the CVC automatic bid to the NCAA Division III National Tournament. The Scarlet Raiders finished the match hitting .264 with eight team blocks and nine service aces. They had three players reach double figures in kills with Zaleck leading the way with 18. Au finished with 48 assists.
Southern Virginia, ranked #7, falls to 19-4 on the season. The Knights hit .226 in the match but failed to record a service ace. Nahuel Recabarren led the way with 15 kills.