After sending a serve into the net in the first set, Ball State’s Graham McIlvaine punched the court with his fists.
The frustration was a common theme throughout the night for the
Ball State men’s volleyball team, falling to No. 1 Loyola 3-1 (19-25) (21-25) (25-20) (17-25).
Ball State struggled to return Loyola’s serve as the match began.
The Ramblers Joe Smalzer tallied two aces in the first set, extending his season total to a country leading 35.
“We dealt with it alright but we could have done a lot better,” Ball State outside attacker Larry Wrather said. “We started off rough and you can only scout so much so much before you see the real thing.”
The Cardinals spent the week practicing returning Loyola’s dangerous serving attack, but struggled initially to pick up the combination of spin and speed.
Loyola would land three aces just in the first set, establishing the tone and putting Ball State defenders on their heels.
When it wasn’t getting aces, Loyola’s serves forced Ball State to dive for the ball. The end result was passes not going to the intended target, making life difficult for setter Graham McIlvaine.
McIlvaine spent as much of the first and fourth sets trying to chase after passes as he did setting the ball.
“We took a while to settle in but we got things figured out in the second and third sets,” Ball State head coach Joel Walton said.
“We broke again in the fourth as we also made too many attacking errors.”
Wrather said Ball State’s offense wasn’t affected much by the strong serving because Ball State had multiple attack plans for each play.
As the game progressed, the Cardinals began anticipating the placement of the Ramblers serves. Passes became crisp, allowing outside attackers Marcin Niemczewski, Shane Witmer and Wrather to run the offense effectively and gets strong attacks that led to points.
Niemczewski led Ball State with 16 kills, Witmer, Wrather and Kevin Owens were tied for second with 8 apiece.
Ball State won 19 of its 20 sideouts in the third set, good for 94 percent.
“For us tonight, game three was a golden game,” Walton said. “We hit .400, we just couldn’t put it together in the other games.”
Loyola managed to land just one ace in the second and third sets combined. The Cardinals kept the second set close before bowing out, then took the third to ignite the crowd.
Offense fell in the fourth set, as passing began to fall flat. Ball State won just 68 percent of its sideouts, a key factor Walton honed in on during practice throughout the week.
He wanted his team to be able to win the ball back quickly to prevent Loyola’s servers from terrorizing the Ball State defense.
Ball State falls to 3-1 in conference play, Loyola improves to 5-0.
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