Men's Volleyball: Princeton climbs above .500 with victory

Men’s volleyball head coach Sam Shweisky got the kind of birthday present that every coach dreams of when Princeton defeated Rutgers-Newark 3-1 on Friday night in Dillon Gymnasium. The win is Shweisky’s fourth as a Tiger and moves the team to the .500 mark for the first time this season.

Princeton (4-4 overall, 0-1 Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association) was offensively on point throughout the entire match and was able to keep the Scarlet Knights largely off balance. Junior outside hitter Vincent Tuminelli led the team with 17 kills, and senior middle blocker Jeff McCown hit an outstanding .750 to contribute 13 kills of his own. Freshman middle blocker Michael Dye also had 13 kills and finished the match with .545 hitting percentage.

“We kept our offense running on all cylinders at a very high level of efficiency,” Shweisky said. “A lot of the credit there has to go to [freshman outside hitter] Sean Cotter and [sophomore setter] Scott Liljestrom. Together they were able to pass well and set the team up for a good offensive night.”

While Shweisky acknowledged the strong statistics the team put up, he also credited the win to the team’s subtler qualities.

“What really helped us out were the less tangible things that we’ve been working on: maintaining focus, not having lulls and being able to recover quickly from mistakes,” Shweisky said. “Against Rutgers, we took some of the pressure off in the third set [which Princeton lost 27-30] but were able to regain focus and get the momentum back. The guys are really adapting well from match to match and are processing a lot of information at a really high level.”

The Tigers’ next challenge will come against 11-time reigning EIVA champion Penn State. The contest is one that Shweisky and the team will go into feeling very little pressure.

“To be honest, in a way, we’re looking past Penn State,” Shweisky said. “We’re not concerned about them right now. What we’re really focused on is St. Francis. We understand that [the Nittany Lions] are a talented team that’s at the same caliber as the teams we played in California, but if and when it’s time to beat Penn State, it’s going to be in the EIVA championship. In a funny way, it could actually be worse if we beat Penn State now and lost to St. Francis, as that might make it more difficult for us to make the playoffs and put us in a position to fulfill our goal of playing Penn State in the finals [of the EIVA tournament]. So while we will certainly go into the match looking to play excellent volleyball, we really have nothing to lose.”

As the season nears its halfway point, Shweisky said he is looking forward with a cautious optimism and a one-game-at-a-time mentality.

“When you look at the schedule, we are mathematically about halfway through the season, but the reality is that we’ve only played one conference opponent so far,” Shweisky said. “The next seven games that we have coming up [all but one of which are against EIVA opponents] will determine where we stand in the playoffs, so we really still have the bulk of the season in front of us.”

Overall, though, Shweisky said he is pleased with how far the team has progressed over the last few months.

“We’re doing really well,” he said. “We’re always looking to improve and get better. Because of that, sometimes we forget that the things we accomplish in one game are things that we couldn’t do just the week before. We don’t spend a lot of times patting outselves on the back. I think that’s a productive energy to have. Our whole plan was to try to be the best we can be, regardless of whether we’re winning or losing. We’ve absolutely done that so far, and it’s put us within reach of our goal of making the EIVA finals. This next month or so is really going to start to paint the picture of how the playoffs will shape up, so I’m glad that we seem to be playing good, strong volleyball at exactly the right time.”