BRONXVILLE, N.Y. - The Manhattanville University men's volleyball team capped off their inaugural regular season with two three-set victories over Old Westbury and Sarah Lawrence on Saturday afternoon. The Valiants now sit with an overall record of 13-16, with their first conference regular season ending at a .500 mark of 9-9.
Game One: Manhattanville 3, Old Westbury 0 (25-17, 25-20, 25-14)
The Valiants forced the Panthers to hit in the negatives while collecting eleven service aces in the three-set sweep.
Joe Gandarillas (Farmingville, N.Y./Sachem HS East) led the attack for the Valiants in the first game, collecting twelve kills, followed by Wilton Martinez (Bronx, N.Y./Celia Cruz Bronx HS of Music) who registered seven kills, adding on seven service aces and twelve digs. Pedro Barros Machado (Vitoria da Conquista, Brazil/Colegio Oficina) led in the assisting department, tallying 16 assists with Idris Idris (Kassala, Sudan/JFK High School) adding on 13 assists.
In the first set, both teams traded blows, seeing the Valiants hold a one-point lead as the game sat at 6-5. The Valiants would then embark on an 11-4 run over the next 15 points, with the hitting duo of Gandarillias and Martinez leading the way for a 17-10 margin. From there, the game would return to its early back-and-forth form, but the lead built up by the Valiants proved to be too much in the first set, as the Valiants took the frame 25-17.
More of the same would occur in the second stanza, as neither team could mount a lead bigger than two points as the contest sat at 7-6. The Valiants would take the next eight out of eleven points thanks to attack errors from their opposition, to have a five-point lead 14-9. The Panthers would then rattle off five straight points to tie the contest at 14-all. Trading blows once again; no team would have a margin of more than two points. The contest would stand at 19-19, when the Valiants took the next six out of seven points to win the second set 25-20, leading into the final set.
Manhattanville would go down early in the third set, 5-2, for only the second time in the contest. The Valiants would battle back, using a 0.192 hitting percentage in the final set going on a 9-4 run, to take the lead at 11-9, using kills and service aces in the process. Manhattanville would close out game one on a 14-5 run, as Martinez collected four service aces in the final stretch, for a 25-14 win, and the 3-0 sweep.
Game Two: Manhattanville 3, Sarah Lawrence 0 (25-21, 25-21, 25-21)
Déjà vu struck twice in the final game of the regular season, as the score for all three sets was the same, 25-21.
Martinez paced the attack in the contest with 13 kills, as Gandarillas and Jacob Fletcher (Rocklin, Calif./Western Sierra Collegiate Academy) followed suit with nine and eight kills, respectively. Barros Machado once again dictated the tempo in assists, with twenty, as Idris followed closely behind with 14. Donning the Libero jersey, Emil Morban Medrano (San Cristobal, Republica Dominicana/HS for Environmental Studies) tallied ten digs, with Idris collecting eight digs of his own.
In the first set, short runs were the name of the game, as no team could mount a lead of more than five points. The Valiants would jump out to an early lead, with a 4-2 run to open the contest, but the Gryphons would battle back later in the set to even the score at 14-all. Manhattanville would embark on a 7-2 run following the tie, as the score sat at 21-16. The Valiants would finish out the first set with a Gandarillas kill, for a 25-21 mark.
Contrary to the first set, the Gryphons would be the ones to jump out to an early 4-2 lead, with the Valiants tying the score at 8-all thanks to a five-point swing. Trading points, the score would eventually find its way to 16-16. Manhattanville would take the next nine out of 14 points, to take the second set at 25-21, leading into the final set of the first regular season.
Sarah Lawrence embarked on a 7-3 run to open the third set, seeing the game sit at that score thanks to three straight kills by Nate Davis. The Valiants saved their best hitting performance of the day for last, using a 0.345 hitting percentage in the final stanza. Manhattanville would show off that hitting prowess, taking the next 17 out of 25 points, taking a huge 20-15 lead. More back-and-forth play would lead to both teams trading points, but the Valiants would put away the Gryphons with kills from the outside hitters, for a familiar score of 25-21, and another three-set sweep.
Up Next
The Valiant embark on their first-ever postseason appearance, taking on Ramapo at 7 p.m. at the Bradley Center in Mahwah, N.J.
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