NEWARK, N.J. – Spending a Thursday night in the Garden State, the Manhattanville College women's volleyball team earned a 3-0 road win over Rutgers-Newark. With the win (25-9, 25-16, 25-11), the Valiants improve to 5-1 on the season, with all five wins via 3-0 sweeps.

Rookie Loren Hernandez (Toa Baja, Puerto Rico/American Military Academy) led the attack effort for Manhattanville, recording a season-high 11 kills. While she did not take to the court in the team's last contest against Drew over the weekend, Hernandez has now put up 18 kills across her last two matches. The Valiants also received eight kills from Felicity Hoffert (Smithtown, N.Y./Smithtown East) and seven putaways from Hannah Pena (Goshen, N.Y./Goshen). Speaking of Hoffert, the senior led the Valiants with four service aces on the night.

Playing a different role in the game plan in this one, Caylee Premoli (White Plains, N.Y./School of the Holy Child) helped set up most of Manhattanville's attacks with 18 assists. The assist total in Thursday's contest is more helpers than the senior had recorded in her collegiate career entering the night. Vianca Vital (Carolina, Puerto Rico/Perpetuo Socorro), the usual assist leader for the Valiants, recorded eight in the win, while Grace Ballagas (Carolina, Puerto Rico/Robinson School) contributed six.

Defensively, it was Ayla Ruiz (Honolulu, Hawaii/St. Andrew's Schools) setting the tone with 11 digs to lead the team. Thursday's effort marks two straight contests of 11 digs for the sophomore and her third match to year reaching double figures. Ballagas had eight digs of her own while Premoli registered seven.

While the Valiants opened the first set with the first three points of the contest, it would take the score being evened at 4-4 for Manhattanville to explode for their first large run of the night. After a Hoffert kill regained the serve for the Valiants, Manhattanville scored four straight points to go up 9-4, quickly followed up by another unanswered eight points to jump ahead 17-5. Rutgers would record just four more points in the set, none of which came while in control of the serve, as the Valiants cruised to the 25-9 win.

The Scarlet Raiders started the second set with a strong bounce back effort, taking an early 4-1 lead before responding to a Valiant run to go ahead 10-9. Manhattanville, however, would score three straight to go ahead with a lead they would hold for the remainder of the second frame. A Pena kill in the tailend of the set would get the Valiants back the serve for Hoffert, who ended the frame with back-to-back aces to put Manhattanville up 2-0.

Manhattanville rolled to a 10-3 start in the third set as the Scarlet Raiders would be unable to pull within less than six to close out the match. Rutgers was limited to just one point while in control of the serve in the set as the Valiants secured their third consecutive win with a 25-11 final in the frame.­­­­­­

Up Next
The Valiants will get their first taste of conference play this season their next time out on Wednesday. Manhattanville takes on Skyline opponent Yeshiva University at 8 p.m. with the match being held at Baruch College.

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