Coming off their first back-to-back losses in division play of the season, the Tigers hit the court looking for a rebound.
Five games later, they got it.
The men's volleyball team showed its strengths, outhitting the competition .218 to .156 and coming through at the end of games three and five to secure the victory on the road against New York University.
After putting up an impressive home stand record of 5-2, Princeton (9-8 overall, 6-5 Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association Tait Division) was still looking to find its groove on the road. Saturday's loss to Penn State, who clinched the EIVA Tait Division title Sunday, was disappointing, but not surprising.
Losing to sub-.500 East Stroudsburg on Sunday put a damper on team spirit, however.
Things didn't look much brighter at the end of the first game against NYU. The Tigers kept it within three the whole time. But, after having the serve on game point, 30-29, NYU (12-16, 5-4 EIVA Hay Division) rallied back to pull out a 33-31 victory on two attack errors by Princeton and a kill by Brian Vilven, who coled NYU with 14 kills.
While the Tigers were down 1-0, they turned their play around to have their best game of the match, beating NYU 30-17 to even the score, 1-1.
The Tigers came out with a slightly different lineup to start the game, turning to freshman right side Carl Hamming and senior middle hitter R.J. Liljestrom for some extra firepower.
Sophomore outside hitter Phillip Rosenberg led two Tiger runs on each of his service opportunities, including one ace.
The Tigers also got support from sophomore middle blocker Mike Vincent, who had five kills and 1.5 blocks in the game. Princeton finished out the win on three straight errors by NYU.
It looked as though the third game was going to swing the momentum back toward NYU and leave Princeton fighting from behind once again, but in a last-ditch overtime effort, the Tigers proved they had something else in mind.
The game started on a good note with junior captain Peter Eichler killing the first ball to give Princeton the first point.
Eichler stepped up and led the team with 19 kills on the match, and Vincent led the team percentage-wise with 14 kills in 26 attempts.
By mid-game, however, the Tigers were still exchanging points with NYU.
On an Eichler serve, Princeton pulled ahead 27-24, but Devin Zolnowski and Ilan Goldstein of NYU helped their team pull even at 30-30.
While Vincent snuck in another kill to retie the game at 31, two more NYU errors on Rosenberg's serve gave the Tigers the game and a 2-1 lead in the match.
Though the Orange and Black only hit .125 in the game, it was enough to edge out the win over NYU's negative hitting percentage.
In the fourth game, momentum swung back to NYU as Macnair Sillick's serve led his team to a 3-0 lead, starting with an opening ace.
From the start, the Tigers couldn't seem to muster a rally big enough to take the lead away from NYU, falling behind by eight points at 26-18. NYU evened the playing ground at 2-2, as the match went into the fifth and final game.
The teams fought back and forth, swapping the lead five times in the 15-point game and sharing a tie at each of the first 12 points.
The Tigers once again found themselves with Rosenberg serving behind the line. They pieced together three points to go from a one-point deficit, at 12-11, to a two-point lead, 14-12.
An NYU timeout broke the Tigers' momentum, and Rosenberg's serve was lost on a kill by Willy McFarland, but Eichler remained unfazed.
On one of sophomore server Brandon Denham's 58 assists, Eichler put away the last point on a kill to win the game and the match, giving Princeton its first win on the road since Feb. 20 against Rutgers- Newark.
While Penn State already clinched the EIVA Tait title, Princeton is still playing for post-season ranking in the next few matches.
The Tigers return home to Dillon Gym this Friday to take on the New Jersey Institute of Technology at 7 p.m., their second-to-last home game. Princeton has three games left in its season; after NJIT, Stevens Tech will be the team's last home opponent.
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