After beating two teams at the bottom of the conference, the men's volleyball team goes to Loyola University of Chicago Friday to face a team tied for first in the Midwest Intercollegiate Volleyball Association.
Friday's game will be a rematch of last spring's MIVA championship match, in which Ball State (8-2 overall, 3-1 MIVA) beat Loyola to advance to the NCAA Final Four. Head coach Joel Walton said the Ramblers are again one of the better teams in the league.
"Loyola is one of the top three teams in the conference," Walton said. "It's going to be up to them, us and Lewis to figure out who's number one."
Friday's game will be one of the first pitting two top teams in the MIVA against one another. Beside Lewis, who Ball State lost to on Feb. 1, the combined record of the Cardinals' conference opponents thus far is 4-12.
Walton said one of the problems his team will face at Loyola is its two big middle attackers, 6-feet-8-inch senior Dan Haas and 6-feet-9-inch junior Shawn Schroeder. Ball State has a pair of 6-feet-8-inch senior middle attackers to rival the two in Matt Denmark and Kyle Weindel.
"(The Ramblers) are really one of the few teams that has the same height we're able to put out in the middle," Walton said.
Walton also said Loyola's senior outside attacker Justin Schnor is one of the best in the MIVA. The Ramblers also have senior setter Shane Davis, who Walton said is an excellent passer.
"This is a really, really important match," Walton said. "We've had difficulty going in (to Loyola) and winning for about the past five years. I'm excited about the challenge."
Despite Ball State going 2-0 since the last USA Today/American Volleyball Coaches Association poll came out, the Cardinals dropped one spot to No. 11 when the new poll was released Tuesday. Walton said he was upset about the slip and the loss to Lewis played a big factor.
"Right now Lewis has taken over the number one spot in the MIVA," Walton said. "The West Coast allows one MIVA team to be ranked high, but won't put two up there."
Walton added that the team needs to keep winning to earn the respect it lost in the Lewis match.
"We have to go out and hopefully show what we're made of," Walton said. "It's a chance to earn back some of that respect."
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