Brother versus brother. A sibling rivalry. A high stakes contest between two coaches who have been a part of each other's lives long before coaching volleyball.
Everyone wants to see when Ball State coach Steve Shondell leads his team against Purdue and its coach. and Steve's brother, Dave Shondell.
But when it comes to Steve and Dave Shondell's first collegiate match against each other, the two brothers don't share that sentiment.
In fact, they almost question why anyone would think they would enjoy coaching against each other.
"I don't like playing against Steve from the standpoint that someone is going to get beat, someone's going to lose," Purdue coach Dave Shondell said.
In both Steve and Dave's opinions, the match between Purdue and Ball State in West Lafayette at 7:30 p.m. Saturday isn't what's important.
It's the players and schools that are.
"To me, it's about the university. That's what we're trying to do, representing Ball State and make this university proud," Steve Shondell said. "That's why I came back here. To make Ball State proud as a volleyball school."
Ball State will take part in its third tournament of the season this weekend with three matches in the Purdue Active Ankle Challenge, headlined by its finale against the 13th ranked Boilermakers.
The Cardinals will carry their undefeated 7-0 record with them.
Before that match arrives, Ball State will have to first take on Western Carolina at 4 p.m. Friday and Jacksonville State at noon Saturday.
But the match against Purdue brings the biggest opportunity.
An upset this large would vault Ball State to its highest plateau since Steve Shondell was named head coach in 2010.
"We're hoping to evolve into a top-25 program. We'll find out this weekend how close we are to achieving that goal," Steve Shondell said. "We're going to go in and compete and represent Ball State as well as we possibly can and find out where we are as a program."
While almost all of the outside focus is on the match between the Cardinals and Boilermakers, Steve Shondell is adamant that each match is equally important.
"A win over Purdue would be completely negated by a loss to one of the other two teams," he said. "A bad loss is every bit as important as a good win. We don't have the luxury of going in and thinking just about one team, or we'll just stub our toe and end up with a real negative weekend."
Perhaps the hardest role in the matchup falls on the players of both teams. While the spotlight shines on the coaches this weekend, the actual outcome rests on the players.
The goal for Ball State, albeit a hard one, is to block out any distractions and focus solely on what the team came to do: play volleyball.
"We've been playing short glimpses of the volleyball [Steve] wants us to be playing," Kelsey Brandl said. "And now this weekend, it's time to show it off. If we don't come in ready, it's going to be a blowout.
"But I'm pretty sure everyone is motivated. Two good teams battling it out, it's going to be cool to watch."
With a handful of victories over Dave Shondell in high school volleyball matches, Steve Shondell now is in a different position as the underdog.
It would appear like the perfect chance for Dave to exact revenge on his brother now that he has the upper hand.
But when it comes to the Shondell family, don't count on it.
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