Rowan volleyball (15-12) closed out New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) play with a bang on Nov. 5, sweeping NJAC opponent New Jersey City University (NJCU) in three sets at Esbjornson Gymnasium (25-14, 25-17, 25-11).
With their win over NJCU (11-16), the No. 5 seed Profs secured a playoff berth and finished the regular season with a 5-3 record in NJAC play.
Head Coach Deana Jespersen says the team’s NJAC regular season finale being a sweep is a huge morale boost.
“We talked about wanting to do that [sweep NJCU] and making sure that we played all the way through again and not taking any points off,” Jespersen said. “We wanted to make sure that we played well, and we played hard, and that we stayed aggressive.”
The Profs held a lead throughout the entirety of the first set, quickly going up 1-0 over the Gothic Knights.
Rowan held a comfortable 20-11 lead in the second set when things began to unravel. A handful of Prof errors combined with a pair of kills from NJCU’s Brenda Gonzalez brought the Gothic Knights within three points (20-17).
Jespersen then called a timeout in hopes of helping her team regain their composure.
“We keep working on making fewer mistakes because they’re too good to be doing that and there’s no reason to be doing that. So again, that’s a mental side of the game that they have to continue working on,” Jespersen said. “We called the time out hopefully to center them and get them to look at each other and settle it.”
And that’s exactly what they did. A kill by Jena Kaul got the team back on track as the Profs scored the last five points on the set to win 25-17, clearing a path for a third set victory to secure the sweep over NJCU.
Kaul came alive in the second, delivering nine of her match-high 11 kills in this set. She says her team’s ability to clean up their game allowed them to stop NJCU’s comeback before things got out of hand.
“We really just wanted to focus on who we are and remember our basic fundamentals,” Kaul said. “We know deep down that we can beat them, so we really just talk about playing for each other and playing hard.”
After a road match against Eastern on Nov. 8, the fifth-seeded Rowan Profs will face Kean (16-12) on the road in the quarterfinals of the NJAC playoffs on Nov. 12.
The Cougars finished the season 5-3 in conference play and beat the Profs in an intense five-set match just a few weeks ago. Kean will look to advance to the NJAC semifinals for the twelfth year in a row.
Despite the tough road ahead for her team, Jespersen is confident in their ability to succeed throughout the playoffs.
“Our path to the championship game is a pretty good one,” Jespersen said. “As long as everybody does what they’re supposed to, I think our path to the championship game is a good one and I believe that we can get there.”
For comments/questions about this story DM us on Instagram @TheWhitSports or email sports@thewhitonline.com
