NEWARK, N.J. – The Drew University men's volleyball team played its first-ever postseason match on Tuesday in the quarterfinals of the Continental Volleyball Conference (CVC) Championship but lost by a final of 3-1 at Rutgers-Newark.
 
The No. 3-seeded Scarlet Raiders won by scores of 25-19, 22-25, 25-19, 25-17 and will now face No. 1-seeded and No. 2-ranked Southern Virginia in the championship semifinals on Friday at Washington and Lee University.
 
No. 5 Marymount defeated No. 4 Kean 3-1 in the other quarterfinal and will take on No. 2-seeded and No. 5-ranked Juniata in the other semifinal.
 
Senior Ephraim Smith turned in a strong outing in his final collegiate match for the sixth-seeded Rangers, throwing down 12 kills and making just one error on 24 swings for a .458 hitting percentage – his third-best mark of the season. He finished his career with a school-record 845 kills.
 
Seniors C.J. Addeo and Bryan Do also competed in their final matches as Rangers. Addeo posted six kills and two blocks to close out his tenure at The Forest with a Drew-record 184 blocks. Do notched one ace and one dig and will walk away as the team's career leader in digs (677). In addition, senior Huriel Perez finishes with a school-record 1,419 assists.
 
Freshman Michael Shipman added seven kills while classmate Gio Martin tallied six kills. Freshman Quinn Donahue contributed with 30 assists, eight digs, and three aces.
 
Aleks Kolodziej paced Rutgers-Newark (22-9) with 17 kills while Derek Au, the CVC Setter of the Year, distributed 48 assists.
 
The Scarlet Raiders jumped to a 15-9 lead in the opening set, only to see the Rangers rally with a 5-1 spurt to draw to within two. Drew trailed just 18-16 after a kill from Donahue, but Newark ended the set on a 7-3 spurt.
 
Drew came back with its top hitting performance of the night in the second set, when he connected on 43.5% of its attack attempts. After the Scarlet Raiders assumed a 3-1 lead, the Rangers answered with a 4-0 spurt and would not trail over the remainder of the set.
 
Drew enjoyed its largest lead of the night at 18-14. The Raiders tied it six times, but the Raiders came back to tie it at 20-all. Newark pulled even for the sixth and final time of the set when it was 22-22, but that's when the Rangers ended the set with three straight points, starting with a kill from Smith and capped by a block from freshman Matthew Adegbite and Shipman.
 
The Scarlet Raiders never trailed in the third set, when it raced to a 4-0 lead. Drew twice cut the gap to two, the last time coming on a block from Addeo and Adegbite that made it 12-10. But that's when Rutgers used a 10-4 run to open up a late eight-point advantage.

Drew trailed 16-9 in the fourth set but refused to go quietly, cutting the gap to 18-14 following a 5-3 surge that included two kills from Martin and one from Smith. But the Raiders scored the next four points, pushing their lead back to eight.
 
Despite the loss, the Rangers enjoyed the experience of competing in the postseason in their first year as a member of a conference. Drew competed as a Division III independent during their first three years as a varsity program.