2002 Men's Volleyball Final Four

Lightning Fall in National Semifinal

NEW YORK, NY- The Lehman College men’s volleyball team was derailed in their attempt to capture a national championship, as the #4 seed Lightning were defeated by #1 seed University of La Verne (CA) in three sets, 30-25, 30-16, 30-22 in the Molten Division III Men’s Volleyball Championship Semifinals held at New York University.

Lehman earned a berth in the Molten Final Four tournament by winning both the CUNY Athletic Conference and North East Collegiate Volleyball Association (NECVA) Tournaments over the past two weekends.

“We could have won the first set,” said fifth-year head coach Junior Garcia. “But we let our nerves get to us and we didn’t play our best tonight.”

The intensity was high at the Jerome S. Coles Center, in Downtown Manhattan. Lehman freshman Alejandro Flores, the 2002 CUNY Player of the Year was powerful, finishing the contest with 21 kills, five digs and three blocks. The 6’7” outside hitter from the Dominican Republic enjoyed his first experience at the national level.

“We didn’t do a very good job of staying focused,” said Flores, the CUNY and NECVA Tournament Most Valuable Player. “We had to dig down to figure out what would be effective, then time ran out on us.”

Freshman CUNY all-star Max Valerio chipped in with 8 kills for the Lightning, while fellow frosh setter Jacsier Lantigua had 32 assists in the match.

After a tight first set, the Lightning were railroaded in the second game as LaVerne’s Nate Michael got more comfortable. He ended up with 11 kills in the match.

In the third game, Flores and the Lightning settled down, but the #1 team in the country showed that the ranking was well deserved.

“We’ll do our best to come back tomorrow and win a match in the tournament,” said Garcia. “We should be prepared, now that the team knows what to expect.”

Lehman (30-3) will play in Tuesday’s consolation game of the Molten Championships, taking on the loser of the other semifinal, featuring #2 seed New York University vs. #3 seed Springfield College at 6:00 pm.