NEWTON, Mass. – Mount Ida College honored senior outside hitter Peter Griffenkranz (Deer Park, N.Y.) in one of his final home games as a Mustang on Saturday afternoon, part of a Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) tri-match featuring Wentworth Institute of Technology and Johnson & Wales University.
Griffenkranz is the conference leader in service aces and one of the top all-around players to wear the Green and White.
In tri-match action, the Mustangs fell in straight sets to both the Leopards and the Wildcats, while Wentworth topped JWU in a marathon five-set match in the middle of the day.
Game One: Wentworth 3, Mount Ida 0 (25-8, 25-13, 25-20)
Wentworth hit .619 in the opening set and cruised to a 25-8, 25-13, 25-20 win over the Mustangs behind eight kills from Scott Skarzynski (Webster, N.Y.).
After the Leopards controlled the action in the first two sets, Mount Ida had the third set tied at 18 apiece, looking to grab a game from the nationally ranked Leopards (#6), but Wentworth came out of a time-out to close the game out on a 7-2 run, including a service ace by Xhuljo Zyba (Holbrook, Mass.), who added five kills in the win.
The Mustangs got three kills each from sophomore Joe Kwiatkowski (Londonderry, N.H.) and Nathan Sprengle (Williamstown, N.J.) and nine assists from Griffenkranz.
Game Three: Johnson & Wales 3, Mount Ida 0 (25-15, 25-17, 25-11)
Tyler Shinkle (W. Deptford, N.J.) led the way for Mount Ida with five kills and Griffenkranz had 14 assists, while Nelson Leadbetter (Athol, Mass.) added six digs.
The Wildcats hit .303 as a team and had eight blocks, two of them from Kyle MacKnight (E. Northport, N.Y.), who had three kills and five digs as well.
Cameron Ponce (San Jose, Calif.) led the Wildcats with both nine kills and 17 assists, and Kanila Chang (Orlando, Fla.) added six more kills.
Jason Rhee (Aurora, Col.) took a turn setting for the Wildcats as well, and piled up 12 assists along with two service aces.
Game Two: Wentworth 3, Johnson & Wales 2 (31-33, 25-16, 27-29, 25-19, 15-11)
In the neutral match, the Leopards came from a set down and outlasted the Wildcats in a marathon match that took nearly two and a half hours.
The teams traded game points multiple times in both the first and third sets, with JWU getting the better of Wentworth both times, but the Leopards won two sets with their backs against the wall and were led to victory on the back of Jake Reed (Arvada, Col.), who had 30 kills, and Sean Mullen (Longwood, Fla.), who had 26 kills.
Collin Ritter (Feeding Hills, Mass.) racked up 65 assists and ten digs in the win for the Leopards, who piled up 81 total kills.
Chang (21 kills) and MacKnight (17 kills) did their best to keep the Wildcats in the match. MacKnight also made it a double-double with 13 digs, while Ponce had 51 assists, three service aces, 14 digs and 2.5 blocks.
Mount Ida (10-14, 1-8 GNAC) heads to Dean College on Tuesday evening for a 7:00 pm non-conference match.