Nayar Reaches 3,000 Career Assist Milestone As Volleyball Battles Terps To Five Sets

Friday, November 24

College Park, Md.

6:00 PM

Rutgers University

10-19,2-17Big Ten

Maryland

17-15,7-13Big Ten

Rutgers

Maryland

Alyssa Nayar on the set against No. 1 Nebraska at Jersey Mike's Arena

Photo by: Cos Lymperopoulos

Nayar Reaches 3,000 Career Assist Milestone As Volleyball Battles Terps To Five Sets

Nov 24 | Women's Volleyball

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COLLEGE PARK, MD. – Rutgers volleyball and Maryland battled to five sets on Friday night at Xfinity Pavilion but it was the host Terps taking the win.

The Scarlet Knights opened with a 25-16 victory but the Terps countered reversing the score in set two. RU responded with a dominating 25-10 set three win, but Maryland collected the win taking the next two stanzas 25-20 and 15-12.

STANDOUT STATS

The Terps' 10 points in the third set tied for the fewest allowed by Rutgers in a 25-point win set this season and the fewest allowed by a Scarlet Knight Big Ten opponent in a 25-point win this year.
Fifth-year senior Alyssa Nayar joined the 3,000 career assist club with 49 helpers.
Redshirt sophomore Alissa Kinkela cracked the RU top five in rally-era season kills behind her seventh double-double of the season with a team-high 16 kills and 10 digs. She upped her season total in kills to 330 marking the most kills in a season by a Scarlet Knight since 2015. She also served up four aces.
Senior Madyson Chitty led RU with 17 digs.
Fellow senior Kristina Grkovic set a new career-high with 15 kills and tied for a match-high six blocks marking the 17th time this season she has tallied five or more rejections in a match.
Maryland and Rutgers went to five sets for the fifth time in the all-time series.

KEY MOMENTS

Set 1 (25-16) | With Maryland leading 8-7, the two squads traded points back and forth until back-to-back Terp errors led to a 12-11 RU advantage. The Terps collected four of the next five for a 15-13 lead, which included knotting up the score for the 13th time, but the Scarlet Knights responded with seven unanswered and closed out the frame on a 12-1 run. Kristina Grkovic hit a perfect 4-for-4 as Rutgers hit .429 with only two errors on 21 attacks. Alissa Kinkela also delivered a pair of aces.

Set 2 (16-25) | An ace by Bekah Williams had RU down 6-5, back-to-back kills from Kristina Grkovic and Alissa Kinkela saw the Scarlet Knights trail 9-8 and a 5-1 run helped RU tie up the set at 14-14 but the Terps would not let go of the lead. Kristina Grkovic added another trio of kills to her stat line.

Set 3 (25-10) | Rutgers rebounded by going out to a 13-5 lead. The Scarlet Knights never let Terps get any closer than seven enroute to a 15-point margin of victory. Alissa Kinkela led with four kills as Rutgers hit .524 with only one attack error in 21 tries.

Set 4 (20-25) | Rutgers rallied from a five-point deficit to knot the score at 20-20 before Maryland forced a deciding set. It was the Terps climbing out to a 10-7 lead to begin with RU twice narrowing the gap to a point. A pair of Anna Hartman swings had the Scarlet Knights trailing at 11-10 and 12-11, but from there Maryland grew its lead to five ahead 20-15. Rutgers rallied as Kristina Grkovic was responsible for four of the next five unanswered points by the Scarlet Knights on three kills and a solo block. Maryland, however, answered with the next five to tie the match up at 2-2.

Set 5 (12-15) | Maryland led 8-5 at the switch. Rutgers capitalized on three Terp errors and a kill from Alissa Kinkela to tie the deciding set evening up the score at 10-10. An Alyssa Nayar dump set and kill from Taylor Humphrey knotted the score at 12-12, but Maryland took the victory with the next three points on kills.

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