It took setter Ethan Pheister about 10 seconds after the player introductions to begin screaming on the court.
Giving his typical stare down to the opponent as he walked along side the net, Pheister turned to his teammates and gave a scream of excitement that could be heard over the arena music.
Ever since getting the starting job late in his freshman season, Pheister had always walked onto the Worthen Arena court in that similar manner. However, with his final home match being in the conference tournament, the three-time all-conference setter said there was a little more emotion to Saturday's pre-match ritual.
"It's the playoffs. You got to be fired up. Otherwise, you are in trouble," Pheister said. "We came out fired up. That's what you got to do in playoff time."
Playing with that emotion, Pheister ran one of team's best offensive performances this season as No. 13 Ball State University swept IPFW in the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association Tournament quarterfinals.
The Cardinals finished the match .330 attack percentage — almost .100 above their season average. It was Ball State's second highest attack percentage in a MIVA match this season.
"It's good in my final home match to be a match like this where we played well and came out with a sweep," Pheister said. "Up to this point we haven't really played up to our potential, and I thought that we played pretty well [Saturday]."
Ball State had four players — middle attackers J.D. Gasparovic and Anders Nelson and outside attackers Lee Meyer and Eric Schulte — finish with at least 10 digs. This was the most Cardinals to have double-digit kills in a three-game conference match since April 2003.
Pheister said he was able to run a more balanced offense against IPFW because of Ball State's passing abilities. The senior said his teammates increased their level of play for the postseason match — allowing the offense to run more efficiently.
"It makes my job a lot easier," he said. "I know no matter where I go I know that I'm going to have a guy take good swings."
Ball State coach Joel Walton said he was happy to see how Pheister ran the offense against IPFW. He said the offense was ideal to how he envisioned it being run this season.
"[Pheister] is capable and has done a good job of running our offense late in the season," Walton said.
Pheister finished the match with 45 assists — almost three more assists than his season average — to bring his career assist total to 4,065. In last week's regular-season finale, Pheister became the fourth player in Ball State's 46-year program history to have more than 4,000 career assists.
Despite his career statistics, Walton said these final conference tournament matches will largely define the senior's career at Ball State.
"These are the matches that define who our seniors are or who our team's leaders are," Walton said. "These are the matches that define a season, and so you got to go after each one of these."
With the quarterfinals victory, Ball Sate will advance to play MIVA regular season champions and No. 10 Ohio State University in the semifinals at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio.
In Pheister's four years as the starting setter, the Cardinals have played and lost to the Buckeyes in the MIVA Tournament each season, including getting swept the last two seasons in the conference championship match. In addition, Ohio State swept Ball State twice in the regular season to extend its winning streak against the Cardinals to seven matches.
Pheister and Walton both said if Ball State can perform like it did against the IPFW, Ball State has a good chance to pull the upset.
"There is no doubt in my mind that, if we play well, we can play with them, so I know it can go either way," Pheister said.
For Pheister, though, Wednesday will be another opportunity for him to walk onto a college court one more time and extend his college career a little bit longer.
"I'm not ready for it to end. I'm having too much fun," he said.
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