Box Score

New York, NY - The Highlanders took on the 10th ranked Baruch College Bearcats on Tuesday night, in a tough non-conference match-up, and fell 3-0.

In arguably their poorest showing of the 2013 season, the Highlanders committed nearly as many attacking errors (24) as kills (28), never a good recipe when facing one of the nations best teams.
In the opening set, Cairn battled toe-to-toe with Baruch and actually held a 10-9 lead halfway through. The Bearcats, however, rattled off a 7-1 run to extend their lead to 16-11. Carrying their momentum for the rest of the set, Baruch outscored Cairn 16-4, claiming a 25-14 win.

The second set saw the Highlanders sit tight with Baruch up to a 16-11 score. Six attack errors, one ball-handling error, and one service error later, the Highlanders found themselves on the wrong end of a 25-11 loss in the second set.

Cairn calmed themselves for the third set and avoided gifting Baruch too many points or major runs, never trailing by more than 4 points, but could not force a game 4, falling 25-22 in the third and final set.

Ryan Garven led the way with a game-high 9 kills for the Highlanders, followed by senior Josh Tuttle with 8 kills. Noah Prickett had an off-night on offense but still came up with a team-high 5 digs. Jon Wilson added 27 assists to his season total. Stephen Hirsch had 5 kills and 2 solo blocks to his name.

Nick Smith paced the Bearcats with 8 kills while Jack McKee, Kris Kaimis, and Martin Joksimovik each tallied 7 kills. Scott Standring had 29 assists.

The loss moves Cairn to 5-7 overall on the season. Baruch improves to 10-3.

It may not have been the type of production 2nd year Coach Ben Fuller was hoping to see before a big tri-match hosted by Cairn this weekend, but the Highlanders will have to forget it and move on quickly, with Eastern Mennonite and 7th ranked SUNY-New Paltz coming to Langhorne, PA.