After losing two home matches, Ball State University men's volleyball coach Joel Walton was looking for answers this weekend. However, he and his team returned from the road Sunday with more question marks.
The men's volleyball team lost in four games to No. 15 George Mason University (30-24, 21-30, 19-30, 28-30) Friday and in three games to St. Francis (22-30, 23-30, 29-31) Sunday.
"We have tried everyone on our roster in libero and outside passer," Walton said. "We are still looking for the right combination."
Ball State has lost four straight matches and 12 of its last 14 games. Last season the Cardinals didn't lose their first 12 games until Mar. 18, 2006.
"We're not up to potential," middle attacker Matt McCarthy said. "It's frustrating because we have talent, and we just need to come together as a team and do the little things to win."
Walton said the biggest problem this weekend was the Cardinals' inability to pass the ball.
"We struggled passing and our offense broke down because of that, and we didn't play good enough defense to makeup for our offense," Walton said. "Our passers are spraying the ball all over court. That's killing our offense."
Walton also said that the poor passing had an effect on the Cardinals' freshman setter Jeff Schmitz, who started his first match Friday.
"Jeff might has well have worn his track shoes on [Sunday], because he was chasing the balls all over the court that we were passing," Walton said.
In addition to the passing problems, the Cardinals had 28 serving errors in the two matches, including 16 against George Mason.
Last season, Ball State had 326 serving errors and 174 aces in 28 matches. In five matches this season, the Cardinals have 74 serving errors and 25 aces.
Walton said serving takes time to develop. He also said the Cardinals will make adjustments and work on serving more during practice.
"We moved a few guys away from jump serving this week," Walton said. "We are trying other things to get the serve in play ... instead of our players watching the ball go into the net."
Schmitz had 12 serving errors this weekend, including a Ball State season-high 10 serving errors against St. Francis.
Schmitz replaced Ethan Pheister as the Cardinals' starting setter.
"One area which Jeff was weak was serving," Walton said. "[Sunday] he had about 55 percent of his serves in-play and that's not acceptable. He single-handedly kept us from reaching our serving goal of 88 percent in-play."
Outside attacker Nick Meyer had 37 kills during the weekend and became Ball State's all-time kills leader in the rally scoring era with 1,037 kills.
Against George Mason, Meyer had a career-high 30 kills. However, against St. Francis, Meyer had seven kills and 10 killing errors.
Earlier in the season against St. Francis, Meyer had 20 kills and 14 errors in a four game loss.
"[St. Francis] just has Nick's number," Walton said. "They were setting blocks in right places, couple of their blockers played good. Nick just made a number of errors."
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