The Ball State men's volleyball team heads to Pennsylvania this weekend, looking to stop a two-match losing streak.
The Cardinals (10-9, 5-3 Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association) will take on Juniata College (8-6) in Huntingdon on Friday. They will then head to No. 4 Penn State (17-3) Saturday to avenge a 3-2 loss earlier in the season.
The Cardinals led 2-0 in that match, but dropped the next two sets before PSU outlasted them 25-23 in the fifth.
Head coach Joel Walton said he is looking forward to another chance to beating the Nittany Lions.
"We're playing better," he said. "I think if we go into that match, get our offense on track ... I really think our chances are good."
The Nittany Lions have a cumulative hitting percentage of .347.
The team shouldn't let down its guard against Juniata, despite the lower record, Walton said. The team is No. 1 in Division III.
However, Walton said the team's main concern is fixing problems that have plagued the team all year.
"We've really stressed working on our offense and trying to get our left side attackers as well as our middles to be more efficient," Walton said.
One area in need of a fix is getting better sets to the middle attackers.
Walton said setter Dave Carlson has struggled with setting balls high enough for the middle attackers.
"The middle attackers are so reliant on the setter," he said.
Walton said he was not worried about serving problems. The Cards committed 20 serving errors in two matches at Hawaii last week and only earned two aces.
"I look at that more as an anomaly," he said.
Defensively, Walton said the team has a chance to stop both teams, who rely on their offenses.
"Both Penn State and Juniata are very good offensively, so we have to make sure we're focused," he said.
Sophomore outside hitter Nick Meyer leads the Cards with 264 kills (4.26 per game) on a .243 hitting percentage. Luis Castera, Evan Berg and Zoran Grabovac all have 142 or more kills this season, and Berg filled in at setter for several matches in February while Carlson was nursing a sore back.
Carlson has averaged 12.22 assists per game while notching a .541 hitting percentage.
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