Rutgers out-blocked Michigan State. Rutgers served exactly as well as Michigan State, five aces and eight misses apiece. Rutgers saved two set points in the second and won it 28-26, the longest set of the night.
None of it came close to mattering, because Rutgers hit .062 in the first set and never found a way to slow down Zora Hardison or Carmen Waye in the other three.
The Scarlet Knights lost 12-25, 28-26, 22-25, 20-25 to Michigan State on Friday night at Jersey Mike’s Arena, a match that ran 130 minutes in front of an announced 703. Michigan State, which dropped out of the AVCA poll this week after two weeks at No. 22, has now beaten Rutgers six straight times.
Michigan State hit .336 with 68 kills and 18 attack errors on 149 swings. Rutgers hit .234 with 50 kills and 16 errors on 145. Rutgers had eight blocks to the Spartans’ six and the two teams were dead even at the service line, but Michigan State sided out at 62.7 percent to Rutgers’ 51 and scored on 49 percent of its own serves to Rutgers’ 37.3. Across four sets the Spartans scored 101 points and Rutgers scored 82.
Hardison and Waye combined for 30 kills against one attack error on 48 swings, which is .604.
Rutgers stuffed exactly one of them.
Rutgers Hits .062 in the First, Then Saves Two Set Points to Steal the Second
Natalie Robinson tied the first at 1-1 off a Lily Bolen set, her first kill back in the starting lineup after one set at Washington and none at Oregon, and Rutgers never got level again.
Malayah Long served three straight from 1-2 to 1-5, and Waye served four more from 4-7, an ace, a Hardison and Madi Andrews block on Addison Wiemann and two kills, before Rutgers took its first timeout down 4-11.
Long served three more from 8-15 to 8-18 and Bianca Mumcular three more from 11-21 to 11-24, the last an Andrews and Hardison stuff of Wiemann. Bolen’s service error ended it, 12-25.
One tie, no lead changes, Rutgers at .062 on 32 swings and Michigan State at .438. It was the same 12-25 Rutgers lost the last set it played by, at Oregon on Sunday.
The second was a different match entirely.
Andrews aced Alleigh Dutton for 0-2, then missed her next serve, and Dutton went to the line and gave Rutgers its first lead of the night. Zharia Harris-Waddy and Malia Romes stuffed Alanna Bankston, Romes killed for 3-2, and Harris-Waddy and Romes stuffed Bankston again for 4-2.
From there the set was a negotiation, with a tie at every score from 7-7 to 13-13. Karis Willow was stuffed and then hit out on back-to-back rallies and answered two rallies later with a kill off Brooke Baldwin for 9-8, and Harris-Waddy’s kill off Bolen at 14-13 put Rutgers ahead for good, or so it looked.
Rutgers built it to 22-18 on Skylar George and Romes kills off Bolen, forcing Michigan State’s second timeout of the set, and then lost six of the next seven points. Hardison killed twice. Romes and Robinson stuffed Bankston for 23-20, one point from set point. Bankston answered, and with Ky Clayton serving, Waye and Bankston killed to tie it at 23 and Harris-Waddy hit out.
Then it was Michigan State with set point.
Harris-Waddy and Romes stuffed Bankston to save it. Bankston killed off Long for a second at 24-25, and Long missed her next serve to tie it at 25. Kaila Kalama-Bajet aced Bankston for Rutgers’ first set point at 26-25, Waye tied it, and George killed off Baldwin for a second at 27-26. With Harris-Waddy serving, Andrews hit out, 28-26.
Twelve ties and seven lead changes. Rutgers hit .270, and half of its blocks for the match came in this set, Romes in on all four and Bankston on the wrong end of every one. Michigan State hit .214 with eight attack errors.
Sarah Vellucci Flips the Third & Zora Hardison Ends the Fourth
The third opened the way the first had, Clayton serving four straight from 0-1 to 0-5.
Dutton answered with the best rotation Rutgers had all night. After Romes sided out, she served five straight from 1-5 to 6-5 with a Bankston attack error, a Harris-Waddy kill off Bolen, an ace on Andrews, a Wiemann kill off Bolen and Bolen’s own kill for Rutgers’ first lead of the set. Dutton missed her next serve.
Rutgers held the lead for most of the next stretch, and Robinson and Baldwin stuffed Andrews for 14-11, their biggest of the set.
Then Michigan State brought Sarah Vellucci off the bench to serve. Hardison sided out at 14-12, and Vellucci served the next five Spartan points, a Hardison kill, a Romes attack error, a Bankston kill, a Dutton ball handling error and a Long and Hardison stuff of George. It was six straight Michigan State points, from 14-11 to 14-17.
Rutgers never led again.
Down 19-23, George took over, killing off Baldwin for 20-23 and, with Bolen serving, off Dutton for 21-23, then stuffing Hardison with Robinson for 22-23 and a Michigan State timeout. Andrews killed for set point out of it, and after a Rutgers timeout, Bankston ended it 22-25.
Six ties and four lead changes. Rutgers hit .306, its best set of the match, and lost it, because Michigan State hit .394.
The fourth had three ties and no lead changes, because Rutgers never led it. Avery Jesewitz started in Wiemann’s place, and Long served three straight from 2-4 to 2-7 with an ace, a Jesewitz attack error and a Bankston kill. Michigan State led 3-10 soon after.
Rutgers came back one side out at a time, trailed 11-15 at the media timeout and 13-16 after a Kalama-Bajet service error, then scored three straight, George killing off Baldwin, Willow killing off a George set and George killing off Baldwin again to tie it at 16 and force a Michigan State timeout.
George hit out on the next rally. Willow killed off Baldwin to tie it at 17, the last tie of the match.
Then Hardison killed four straight balls.
She sided out at 17-18, and with Mumcular serving she killed for 17-19, 17-20 and 17-21. Hardison killed again for 18-22, and Karolina Staniszewska served a Bankston kill and an ace on Jesewitz for match point at 18-24. Romes saved one off Bolen and Dutton aced Lia Schneider to save another.
Hardison ended it, 20-25.
Stats Breakdown
George led everyone in Scarlet with 14 kills against three attack errors on 39 swings, .282, with 10 digs, an ace, a solo block and a block assist for 16.5 points. Thirty-nine attempts was the second-most on the floor behind Bankston’s 46, and unlike in Queens, the volume came with a return.
Willow added 11 kills on 27 swings and two errors, .333, both errors on consecutive rallies in the second, and her only other mistake was one missed serve. Five days after 12 total errors at Oregon, the inconsistency that has followed her all season now shows up from one match to the next as much as inside a single one.
Harris-Waddy hit .333 with seven kills on 15 swings and four block assists. Robinson, back in the lineup for all four sets, had five kills on 13 swings without an error, .385, and three block assists for 6.5 points. Romes finished with eight kills, three errors and 27 swings for .185, plus four block assists that all came in the second set. Wiemann had one kill and five attack errors on 12 swings, minus-.333, three of the five into a Michigan State block, and Jesewitz hit .200 on 10 after taking her spot in the fourth.
The setting split was Baldwin 21 and Bolen 19, with three from Dutton and one from Kenzie Dyrstad. Bolen dug 11 and Michigan State out-dug Rutgers 60-51. Dutton had two of the five aces, and the eight service errors were spread across six servers.
Bankston led the match with 21 kills and 21.5 points but hit .283 with eight attack errors on 46 swings, five of them in the second set alone. Hardison hit .600 with 16 kills, one error and 25 swings, eight of the kills in the fourth, and Waye hit .609 with 14 kills on 23 swings and no errors at all. Andrews had 11 kills but hit .172 with six errors. Long ran the offense with 53 assists and Schneider dug 17.
What Didn’t Work (and One Thing That Did)
Hardison and Waye, first and most obviously.
Thirty kills, one error, 48 swings. Rutgers stuffed Bankston four times in the second and made her work for all 21 of her kills, but it blocked Hardison once, at 22-23 in the third, and Waye never. Hardison scored six of Michigan State’s last eight points, and Rutgers had nothing to throw at her.
The first set, second.
Rutgers scored 12 points in it, half of them on a George stuff and Spartan mistakes. They hit .270, .306 and .275 in the last three sets and won one, and against a team this efficient, giving away a set means needing to be perfect in the other three.
Side out, third. Rutgers sided out at 51 percent to Michigan State’s 62.7, and for a team that matched the Spartans ace for ace, that gap was the attack, not the pass. Michigan State aced Rutgers five times, Dutton at 0-2 to open the second and Jesewitz on match point, and the other three were not charged to anyone. George, the passer opponents have hunted all season, was not charged with a reception error.
The one thing that did work was Skylar George.
She hit minus-.095 on 21 swings at Oregon on Sunday and .000 on 33 against Penn in September. On Friday she turned 39 into 14 kills against three errors. When Rutgers was down 19-23 in the third and the match was getting away, she killed twice and blocked Hardison on three straight Rutgers points to make it 22-23.
That set ended anyway. She was the best player in Scarlet on a night Rutgers needed two of them.
Rutgers is 10-11 and 1-8 in the Big Ten and stays home for Illinois on Saturday at 7 p.m. at Jersey Mike’s Arena. The Illini are receiving votes too, and beat Michigan State in four in Champaign last week.
That makes six straight losses, every one of them in four sets.
At Washington, Rutgers lost a set they had five chances to win. At Oregon, they won one the Ducks had four chances to take. On Friday they saved two more set points to steal the second, and then Zora Hardison killed eight balls in the fourth without an error.
The clock is ticking to end the losing streak.