New York, NY (10/31/10) – The Montclair State volleyball team closed out its regular season in  exciting fashion as the Red Hawks posted a pair of five-set victories over Manhattanville and U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at the Hunter Invitational on Sunday.

The Red Hawks (7-28) rallied from 2-1 down in each set as they stretched their winning streak to three matches. MSU toppled Manhattanville 28-30, 25-17, 25-27, 25-12 and 15-10 before taking down Merchant Marine 16-25, 25-17, 19-25, 25-22 and 18-16.

Freshman MARTA TOPOR (Bogota, NJ / Bogota) collected a season-best 21 kills along with three service aces and eight digs in the win Manhattanville triumph. ALYSSA BATISTE (Manahawkin, NJ / Southern Regional) added eight kills, 17 assists, eight service aces, five digs and three blocks while freshman MEGAN COCKCROFT (Rutherford, NJ / Rutherford) added seven kills and 10 digs along with two aces. Libero Kaitlin Irwin (Cranford, NJ / Cranford)  totaled 24 digs as she passed the 700-dig mark for the season.

Irwin registered 29 digs along with two kills and three service aces against USMMA. Batiste led Montclair with 16 kills and had nine assists, four digs and five total blocks. Cockcroft chipped in with 10 kills and two aces while Topor tallied eight kills, five aces and nine digs. TOI MCRAE (Orange, NJ / Newark Tech) had four kills.

Montclair now turns its attention to the New Jersey Athletic Conference Tournament which gets underway on Tuesday, November 2 with opening-round action. The sixth-seeded Red Hawks will take on No. 3 seed Rutgers-Camden in Camden, NJ at 7:00 pm. The winner heads to No. 2 seed Ramapo in the semifinals on Thursday, November 4.