New York, NY – The men's volleyball team took on the top ranked Hawks of SUNY New Paltz on Wednesday evening. The visitors proved too much to handle as they displayed their #1 ranking and served the Purple and Gold with a 3-0 loss. The defeat drops Hunter to 19-8 overall while New Paltz advances to 24-2.
 
Benjamin Crusinberry registered a game high 11 kills while Steven Tarquinio posted nine of his own as the duo accounted for 20 of the team's 26 kills. Nicolas Sanchez was credited with 19 assists and give digs on the evening.
 
New Paltz strung together two separate attack sequences that yielded four and seven unanswered points resulting in a 14-4 score midway through the match. The hosts were unable to rally from the 10 point deficit and would get no closer than within nine as they dropped the first set by a score of 25-10.
 
The second set was played much closer in the early stages as a Crusinberry kill on a Sanchez set made it an 8-7 game in favor of the visitors. However, after falling behind by six at the 21-15 mark, the Hawks closed the gap to 23-19 but ran out of momentum as Chrisopher Husmann threw down the final kill to make it a 2-0 game behind a set score of 25-19.
 
Hunter took their first lead of the night at the 5-4 mark in the third and managed to tie New Paltz five times through the initial eight points. The upstate visitors responded with a crushing 6-1 run that proved to be enough of a point differential to hold on to the end. The Purple and Gold did manage to pull within four points in the latter stages of the set but they ran out of room and succumbed to a 25-18 final set score.
 
Hunter looks to get back on track on Saturday, when they compete against CCNY and York College at 9am and 1pm respectively in their final CUNYAC multi-match which will be hosted by York College.