Newark, NJ – Cairn University was defeated in a CVC match on Tuesday evening by No. 5 Rutgers-Newark in straight sets, 3-0. The Highlanders dropped to 2-4 overall and 0-2 with the loss to last year's CVC Champions, while the Scarlet Raiders picked up their first conference win to improve to 9-1 overall and 1-1 in the CVC.
 
Rutgers-Newark cruised to a first-set win of 25-8 and won the next two sets 25-17, and 25-14. Overall, the Highlanders hit for a negative percentage; due in large part to the Scarlet Raiders' 16 blocks in the match.
 
Andy Willits was the only Cairn hitter to not fall in the negatives as he hit eight kills along with eight errors for a .000 attack percentage. David Dager had four kills, while Matthew Gump collected 15 assists. Ryan Ludvik led the team in digs with four.
 
Corey Pieper led the Scarlet Raiders in kills with 10, while Jack Fredricks and Travis Mintzer each hit eight kills in the match. Kevin McCandless picked up 30 assists, while Quocmy Nguyen had seven digs. Leading in the block category was Nick Kuti with seven.
 
Cairn University showed some promise in the second set as they went on a couple of runs to stay in the game. One of these was a 4-0 run to bring the score to 12-10 and included a kill from Dan Winters and two service aces from Matthew Gump. A second run involved a 5-2 swing marked by kills from Dager and Willits, as well as an ace from Willits.
 
Unfortunately, those runs were not enough to stop the Scarlet Raiders' 17 kills and .560 attack percentage in the second set. Overall, Rutgers-Newark hit 37 kills and had a .466 attack percentage for the match.
 
The Highlanders will try to bounce back this weekend as they travel to Eastern Mennonite University on Friday, Feb. 12. Cairn will then turn around and play Marymount University and Bluefield College (Va.) in a tri-match on Saturday.