LINCOLN, Neb. - Just like its two previous contests, Ball Statestruggled to play a complete match against Florida A&M onSunday, losing 3-1.
The Cardinals started with a 30-25 game-one victory, which hadfew errors and a kill total that was one shy of their match totalagainst second-ranked Nebraska the previous night.
However, as the match went on the errors began to increase andwith that so did Florida A&M's lead. It took the next threegames, 30-23, 30-25 and 30-16.
The loss capped a winless weekend at the U.S. Bank/Arby'sClassic. Ball State lost to Maryland in four sets and was swept bythe Cornhuskers on Saturday.
"We got more and more error-prone and you could sense [A&M]getting more confident," head coach Randy Litchfield said. "Theyhad the match played the way they wanted it played by late in gamethree."
The match was the third of what Litchfield said is six bignon-conference games the team will play this season. So far theCardinals have lost all three (Valparaiso and Maryland being theothers), and need to win the next three if they are gong to finish.500 in big matches, which was Litchfield's goal.
"We've put our backs to the wall; we've got to get it going," hesaid. "We have to have some success in these big matches so late inNovember we've got some stuff to hang our hat on."
Junior Sarah Obras was one player that had success on Sunday,leading the Cardinals with 22 kills and 21 digs. She also had fiveblock assists, one short of her career record.
"I tried my best and it's not satisfying because we didn't win,"Obras said. "Coming out in victory as a team is much moresatisfying than anything I can ever do."
Her efforts came the day after she was limited to single-digitkills for the first time in 39 matches.
"To keep your head on after that Nebraska match and to come outand go at it like she did is precisely what we want out of Sarah,"Litchfield said.
Obras was the only Cardinal named to the All-Tournament aftershe compiled 50 kills and 49 digs in the three matches.
Much like the team, junior Kristin Westhof started game onestrong with a total of seven kills and a .778 hitting percentage.However, she ended with 13 kills and had six errors in the lastthree games.
Keller had 20 digs in the match and 52 over the weekend.Litchfield thought Keller played well over the course of theweekend, but tended to wear out because of the lack of support fromthe rest of the team.
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