Leading 29-28 in game two Thursday, the No. 15 Ball State University men's volleyball team was unable to put away No. 12 Loyola University-Chicago and go up 2-0 in the match as Loyola won the game 31-29.
Coach Joel Walton said not closing game two came back to hurt the Cardinals as Loyola defeated Ball State University in four games 28-30, 31-29, 30-23, 30-19.
"We came out of the gates pretty well and let game two slip away," outside attacker Mark Rumschik said. "They played exactly as we scouted them. We were passing the ball into the net and the way we were running our offense was the difference in games three and four."
Following game two, the teams had a three-minute intermission. Typically Ball State have had longer intermissions this season, including a seven-minute intermission at home, Walton said.
According to NCAA rules, each university determines the length of its intermission during home matches.
Walton said the short intermission affected his team after suffering a tough game-two loss.
"It was hard for the guys to move forward." Walton said. "I wanted a little bit more time to talk to our team after that game."
Ball State had a .157 attack percentage, its lowest percentage in a conference match .
Loyola is 11-2 at home. In addition, the Ramblers tied a season-high with nine serving aces, including five in game four.
Rumschik said Loyola's low-ceiling arena gave the Ramblers an advantage Thursday.
"There were balls you thought that might hit the ceiling and didn't, and it played on our minds a bit, but it's not something to blame the loss on," Rumschik said.
Thursday was outside attacker Todd Chamberlain's first match after serving a 30-day suspension. He came off the bench in all four games and had one kill.
Walton said Chamberlain struggled passing, but wasn't surprised by his performance.
"You hope that he would be able to come back and give us some life in the match, and the reality was it was going to be a real long shot," Walton said. "To expect him to come back in one day with just a few passing practices and a quick morning practice is really unrealistic."
Ball State is 0-6 in road matches against nationally ranked teams. Ball State will play another nationally ranked team Saturday when the Cardinals travel to Fort Wayne to play No. 10 IPFW.
"It's a tough hurdle for an team to overcome," Walton said. "It's even more difficult when you have two freshmen setters that doesn't know the arena they are playing in. To be successful on the road in the conference it takes experienced players who know how to play in those environments."
Ball State is 1.5 matches behind first-place No. 8 The Ohio State University and has three conference games remaining
"It's going to be out of reach to catch Ohio State, but Saturday we are in the driver's seat for that lone second-place position with IPFW," Walton said.
Outside attacker Nick Meyer led Ball State with 16 kills. Meyer has 1,316 career kills, moving him into sixth place on the Ball State all-time career kills list.
"Nick played well [Thursday]," Walton said. "We probably didn't set him enough and leaned on him, too; it was just one of those matches. I would liked to have had Jeff [Schmitz] get him the ball in key situations."
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