MEN'S VOLLEYBALL: Ball State stays perfect in win over Quincy

Ball State’s junior middle attacker Kevin Owens rose up, utilizing every inch of his 6-foot-9-inch frame, met a feeble Quincy strike high above the net and sent it straight back over for one of his two solo blocks and one of many points Ball State got at the net.

Quincy’s assistant coach Frank Masek stopped shouting, plopped into a seat on the bench, and dropped his clipboard, defining how the Hawks collectively felt most of the night.

The Cardinals improved to 6-0 overall and won their first Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association conference game of the year, defeating the Hawks in four sets (25-13, 25-10, 23-25, 25-14).

In the first set, Ball State set the tone early and emphatically dominated the net nearly the entire night.

The first set saw new starting setter senior Dan Wichmann allow six Cardinals to register a kill, as the offense that has recently started to improve stretch its wings even more and hit a .400 clip.

“I thought Dan did a really nice job with our game plan,” coach Joel Walton said. “He kept Quincy guessing the whole match.”

Ball State dictated the pace all set winning; Quincy did not even register a block in the game.

The only thing that changed in the second set was the side the teams lined up on.

Ball State’s defense was equally as suffocating and forced Quincy’s hitting down to
-.200 for the match to that point.

The Hawks just didn’t have an answer for the Cardinals’ presence at the net.

“Quincy choose to hit a ball out of bounds, rather than challenge our block,” Walton said. “They were pretty intimidated in that moment.”

Through the first two sets it looked like it would be a short match and a long bus ride home for Quincy, but in the third set the Hawks showed life against a drastically different Cardinal line-up.

Ball State brought in two new outside hitters in Jamion Hartley and Urim Demirovski and a former starting setter Graham Mcilvaine. The change in personnel and their play radically changed the momentum of the match.

“I gave some guys who have been playing well in practice a chance, and they didn’t play well,” Walton said.

For the first time in the match, the Cardinals were not imposing their will; in fact they were on their heels.

“I think we lost our energy, and stopped communicating,” sophomore outside hitter Shane Witmer said. “We didn’t go out and get it.”

When Walton put the starters back in, it was too late to complete the sweep.

The fourth set saw the Hawks come out with the same energy that helped them win the previous set. Trailing 6-7 Walton took a time out. When Ball State broke the huddle they went on to break Quincy’s hopes of a comeback.

“[Coach Walton] just told us to take a deep breath because we were pressing a little bit,” Witmer said. “We started passing well, and put the fourth game away like we should.”

Ball State finished the match on a 19-7 run to win the match, and remain the only undefeated team in Division I-II college volleyball.

The Cardinals play was epitomized by Witmer’s play. The sophomore lead the team in kills with 13 and digs with 12 for his second career double-double, and was a driving force behind Ball State’s dominate stretches.

“The Shane Witmer we saw tonight was the player that we recruited,” Walton said. “Now the challenge for Shane is to do that on back-to-back nights.”

Witmer and the Cardinals will have a chance to replicate their performances tomorrow night as the take on another MIVA opponent in Lindenwood.