The lack of its all-conference setter was not a problem for the No. 15 Ball State University men's volleyball team.
While starting setter Ethan Pheister watched from the bench, Ball State defeated IPFW 27-30, 30-26, 26-30, 30-16, 15-12 on Saturday in Fort Wayne to clinch the No. 3 seed in the conference tournament.
Coach Joel Walton said he was happy with the way Ball State (15-8, 6-4 Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association) rallied to win the final two games in its conference regular season finale.
"We played well as a group and leaned on different people at different times," Walton said.
Redshirt freshman setter Daniel Penrod started in place of the Pheister, who missed his first match of the season after violating team rules.
Making his first college start in Pheister's absence, Penrod finished the match with a match-high 56 assists. In the final two games, the Cardinals had more than a .500 attack percentage.
After the team had less than a .200 attack percentage in the second and third games, Walton said Penrod was able to get into a better offensive rhythm.
The coach also said the Cardinals were able to win the final two games because of a defensive adjustment they made.
In the first three games, Walton said IPFW (12-12, 3-5 MIVA) was setting balls to outside attacker Ben Duckworth and using its middle attackers as decoys to draw Ball State's middle attackers away from Duckworth. However, the Cardinals in the final two games, Walton said, began to put more blockers on Duckworth, who had a match-high 27 kills.
"We started to take more risks when we realized they weren't setting to their middles," Walton said.
The Cardinals had three players finish the match with at least 15 kills, including right outside attacker Dominic Spadavecchio, who had a team-high 20 kills.
Spadavecchio said he benefited from IPFW putting one blocker on him because the Mastodons were trying to minimize the offensive production of Ball State's middle attackers.
"A lot of teams haven't been respecting our right side this season," he said. "It's just good to take advantage of that."
This was Ball State's first match since sweeping last-place Quincy University in a MIVA match March 28 - its longest amount of time off between matches this season.
Walton said the time off helped Spadavecchio after he moved to the right outside attacker position less than a month ago. In the two-week break, the coach said he was able to get Spadavecchio to utilize more cross-court kill attempts.
"He's been a really bright spot for us this year," Walton said.
With this win the Cardinals will not have another conference match until they play their MIVA Tournament quarterfinal match, most likely against Quincy on April 24 or April 25 in Worthen Arena.
Ball State's next match will be against the defending NCAA champions, No. 7 Penn State University, on Friday at Worthen Arena.
Walton said Pheister will most likely return from his suspension to play against the Nittany Lions. In addition, Spadavecchio said the team feels confident entering the non-conference match.
"We've got a group of guys that are coming together and that can beat anyone when we play as a team," he said.
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