For the first time in school history, Ball State fell to in-state rival IUPUI in women’s volleyball. The Cardinals, playing without three senior starters for the fourth straight match, fell to the Jaguars 3-1.“We had a lot of stupid errors,” coach Randy Litchfield said. “They just outplayed us in every area of the game.“There’s not an area involved in volleyball that we didn’t fail in.”Defensive specialist Stephanie Bacan and middle attackers Rachel Refenes and Kristin Westhof will return when the Cardinals (3-3) head to Georgetown for an invitational this weekend, but they were unable to help the Cardinals as they were outplayed by IUPUI.Still, Litchfield said that missing the three starters was no excuse for the way they played Tuesday.“The eligible athletes are so reliant on the three that weren’t playing; we’re not worth anything without them,” Litchfield said. “The kids that had the opportunity to suit it up tonight just failed the program miserably. It has nothing to do with the loss; it has everything to do with the style, the way we played.“I would have taken all the bad play in the world if we had shown some heart.”It is the third straight loss for the Cards. Before the loss, Ball State had an 8-0 record against IUPUI.“IUPUI smelled the blood in the water,” Litchfield said. “They saw that we were a little weakened, so they certainly deserve a lot of credit. They played great volleyball, but, you know, that’s what you hope for; you hope it’s going to be a tough match.”The Cardinals gave up an early lead to the Jags in the first game and fought back, but couldn’t pull through, dropping the first game 30-28.The second game was also close and led to the Cardinals only win, 30-28. The Cardinals’ held a slightly better hitting percentage throughout the first two games.Then the bottom fell out, with the Cardinals losing the final two games 30-23 and 30-21. Ball State went down by as many as 11 points in game four, and was outhit by almost .2 percent in the final two games.Senior Sarah Obras and junior Kelly Cochran led the way for the Cardinals with 15 kills apiece. Obras had six attack errors, however, and the Cards had 18 attack errors, nine service errors and six ball handling errors — including five from Angie Parrell — throughout the match.The Cardinals will head to Washington, D.C., this weekend to face Central Connecticut, Yale and Georgetown.“We’ll have our full compliment of players,” Litchfield said, “and we’ll have to endure a wake-up practice before we go to Georgetown.”He said he didn’t know if his team would be ready for the challenges this weekend.“Coming off of this, I make no predictions,” he said.
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