It took seven matches, but Saturday the Ball State University men's volleyball team reached its serving goal of 88 percent in-play for the first time this season.
Serving a season-high 91 percent in-play, the Cardinals (3-4) defeated Juniata College (0-1) in straight games, 30-20, 30-23, 30-28.
"We put a lot of pressure on them defensively," coach Joel Walton said. "We forced them to earn side-outs, and in games one and two [our serving] allowed us to put together good defensive runs and open up big leads."
Prior to this match, the Cardinals averaged 13.2 serving errors per match, and the fewest they had during one match was 10 in the season opener.
Ball State had one serving ace and eight serving errors against Juniata.
"We've been working on it like crazy," middle attacker Ryan Clarke said. "Coach has been stressing serving really hard. We were able to pull it together tonight."
Outside attacker Nick Meyer said Ball State was successful serving because of the time they spent practicing serves.
"We came in and served and passed for at least an hour each day," Meyer said. "Having that block in practice really made a difference, and it showed [Saturday]."
The Cardinals had 53 kills, and averaged a season-high 17.7 kills per game.
Also, for the first time this season Ball State had three players with at least 10 kills.
Meyer led the Cardinals with 16 kills, while outside attacker Todd Chamberlain had 13 and middle attacker Matt McCarthy had 10.
For Meyer, this was the fourth time in seven matches he led Ball State in kills.
"We came out and played with a lot of intensity," Meyer said. "As a team we talked a lot, came fired up and that's probably the best match we've played all year."
The Cardinals had 9.5 blocks in the match, the team's second most this season. Clarke led Ball State with 3.5 blocks, and four players had at least one block in the match.
"That [match] was amazing," Clarke said.-á"I'm really glad that we picked it up, and didn't make errors like we have been in the past couple of matches."
Clarke had a career-high seven digs and season-high seven kills against Juniata.
Walton said Clarke brought energy to the game, despite seeing limited action during the last few weeks because of a knee injury.
"Ryan did a really nice job both attacking and blocking," Walton said.-á"He gave us some life in the middle positions."
Juniata entered Saturday's match as the No. 1-ranked team in Division III, and has won the last three Division III national championships. In 2005 the team defeated Ball State.
"Just because they are D-III doesn't make any difference," Meyer said. "It's just a place to play volleyball. All those guys are really good and it showed."
In the Cardinals' two matches this weekend, the team won all six games, including a sweep against the Milwaukee School of Engineering (1-4) Friday.
Entering the weekend, Ball State had lost its previous four matches and 12 of its last 14 games.
Walton said he was happy with the way his team battled for points late in games.
Walton said, "We were giving away leads and struggling to play consistently.-áWhat I did like to see most is the guys play on a consistent basis at a high level."-á
Ball State's next game will be its conference opener against Lewis University Friday at Worthen Arena.
Last season, the Cardinals finished the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association season in third place with an 8-4 record, and lost in the MIVA tournament semifinals.
"Playing these [non-conference] teams have gotten us very prepared," Meyer said. "Playing well in this last match gets us a lot of confidence going into conference play."-á
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