After sluggish start, men's volleyball makes easy work of NYU in 3-1 win

"It ain't over till it's over." As the men's volleyball team learned last night, Yogi Berra knew what he was tallking about.

The Tigers had good reason to be confident entering the match against NYU, having stomped the Violets in fifty-five minutes in their last meeting. After a 30-20 victory in game one, the Tigers relaxed a little. Always a mistake.

"We were sleepwalking out there. After four games in a row where they score less than twenty, you think you can stop playing," said head coach Glenn Nelson.

Just to keep things interesting, NYU decided to take advantage of this situation. A hard-fought, 33-31 Violet victory in game two put an abrupt end to Princeton's happy-go-lucky ways. All of a sudden, the team had an actual volleyball game on its hands. Apparently they were also not the only ones who realized this.

Coming alive

A volleyball match usually contains several periods of relative quiet, when a lone heckler can easily be heard by the entire gym. A few Princeton fans in the front row proved this last night, finally making Dillon Gym feel like it actually belonged to the Tigers. It didn't hurt them either, for it was at this point that the team really began to play.

Princeton maintained a sizable lead throughout all of game three, its only troubles coming from the occasional defensive error or lapse in judgement. The Tigers were taking the Violets seriously now, however, and kept this game entirely under their control. In spite of NYU's best efforts, Princeton closed out the third game, 30-22.

The fourth game was nothing less than total domination. Sophomore outside hitter Blake Robinson started things out right with a brilliant play, coming back from his own diving save in the backcourt in time to turn the Violet return into a Tiger kill. The Princeton attack simply overwhelmed NYU, as the Violets struggled to come up with even a single dig in the face of an onslaught of powerful spikes. The Tigers had broken their opponents. Now it was time for the icing on the cake, that came in the form of junior Tom Mandecki.

Typically a libero, Mandecki came in on the front line at the end of game four. The five-foot, seven-inch defensive specialist twice elevated over opponents half a foot taller than him, closing out the final game, 30-16, with the best kill of the night.