Score: Kennesaw State 3, NJIT 0 (25-17, 25-20, 25-27, 25-18)
Records: Kennesaw State (14-9, 8-1), NJIT (9-18, 1-8)
Key Players: Sydni Shelton (20 kills hitting .378), Kristi Piedimonte (48 assists and 10 digs), Anaiah Boyer (10 kills and 14 digs), Maddie Jones (7 aces tied a school record)
 
 
 Box Score (PDF) | Box Score (XML)
 
THE STORYLINE:
· The Kennesaw State volleyball team got back on track on Friday, October 28 beating NJIT 3-1 in Newark, New Jersey. Sydni Shelton posted 20 kills hitting .378 against the Highlanders and Kristi Piedimonte once again averaged 12.0 assists per set finishing the match with 48. Maddie Jones also led the Owls tying a school record in service aces with 7.
 
SCHUNZEL QUOTE:
While we didn't play as clean of a match as we would have liked, overall there are a lot of positives from the night. First of all, any road win is a good one, especially late in the year when a lot of crazy results start popping up. I'm proud of our team for battling through some adversity tonight and coming out on the good side. Secondly, we had some great performances with Sydni Shelton having 20 kills and was very aggressive attacking all night. Maddie Jones tied a school record with seven aces and scored a ton of points for us behind the line, and Rachel Taylor attacked very well out of the middle and gave us some big kills. We're going to enjoy this win tonight, and tomorrow we'll get down to Upstate, who is playing great volleyball right now and prepare to give another great road effort.  

HOW IT HAPPENED: 
First Set: The Owls raced out to a lead in opening frame at 6-0 with Jones picking up her first two aces of the night forcing NJIT to use an early timeout. KSU got up by as many as 10 in the set and weren't pressed by NJIT as the Owls closed it out 25-17.
 
Second Set: Kennesaw State carried their momentum into the second set building an early 7-3 lead. The home team wasn't going to go quietly though as they went on a 5-0 run to grab their first lead of the match up 9-8. Later in the set, NJIT went on a 3-0 run to take an 18-16 lead and forced KSU to use its first timeout of the match. The pep talk worked in the timeout as the team responded with a 9-2 run to close out the set and go up 2-0 in the match.
 
Third Set: KSU needed another comeback as NJIT went on a 6-0 to take a 21-17 lead. The Owls came back to tie the match spoiling one set point, but couldn't spoil the second as the Highlanders got on the board taking the third set 26-14.
 
Fourth Set: Needing a good start to the fourth set, the Owls had one taking a 9-4 lead. They maintained their lead at 15-9 and didn't look back closing out the final set 25-18.
 
#NESTNOTES
· Maddie Jones tied a school record with seven service aces against NJIT. Overall, the team had 11 against the Highlanders.
· Sydni Shelton came up big for the Owls notching 20 kills hitting .378. It is the second time this season she has had 20-plus kills and fourth time in her career.
· Kristi Piedimonte once again averaged 12.0 assists per set finishing the four-set match with 48. It is the eighth time this season she has averaged at least 12.0 assists per set.

UP NEXT
After a day off, the Owls will take on USC Upstate in Spartanburg, South Carolina. A couple weeks ago, Kennesaw State beat the Spartans in three sets at the KSU Convocation Center.

To keep up with the latest Kennesaw State volleyball news follow the team on Twitter @KSUOwlNation and @KSUOwlsVB or by liking Kennesaw State University on Facebook.
 
All tickets to all 2016 home volleyball contests are free throughout the year.