Before the season opener against Clarke College, Ball State University men's volleyball coach Joel Walton said he thought outside attacker Nick Meyer could have an All-American season.
Tuesday night was the first step in that direction.
Meyer led Ball State with 15 kills, four serving aces and 20 points, as the Cardinals swept the Crusaders 30-18, 30-23, 30-18.
"Nick is a great player for us, and he has been for the last three years he's been in our program," Walton said. "He's our top point scorer and a guy that we lean on pretty heavily."
In the first two games, Meyer finished each game with 7.5 points and was tied for the team lead with two block assists.
Also, with the Cardinals leading 8-6 in the third game, Meyer had two serving aces during a 7-0 Ball State run, which helped secure the three-game sweep.
"Tonight was a good start, but I have to prove myself against the tougher teams like Penn State [University], IPFW, George Mason [University] and Loyola [University]," Meyer said.
In addition, Meyer finished the match against Clarke with a .520 attack percentage. Last season, Meyer averaged a .288 attack percentage and 4.55 kills per game.
"For Meyer to make [the All-American team] he is going to have to hit a high percentage and have a high number of kills, and he did that tonight," Walton said. "He put his serve in play and had four aces, and that's a pretty good night."
If Meyer is to make the All-American team, he will be doing it without the on-court help of Patrick Durbin.
Tuesday's game against Clarke marked the first game that the Cardinals were without Durbin, who will miss the entire season due to academic ineligibility, Walton said.
Last season Durbin was second on the squad with 321 points and 269 kills.
"Durbin's situation is what it is, and we're moving forward," Walton said. "We're going to use [Patrick] in practice to help train our guys and help get them ready for the match that we have coming up."
Complementing Meyer's performance, middle attackers Matt McCarthy, Ryan Clarke and Doug Willmann each had five kills. Clarke also led the Cardinals with four block assists.
"Probably the biggest thing that impressed me was the numbers by our middles," Walton said. "We really got good production out of our middle, and if there was one bright spot [Tuesday] that would be it."
Ball State opened the match with a 7-0 run, and Clarke did not have a lead until midway through the second game when it was up 12-11.
"I thought we played pretty well-we have just a few things we have to work on," Meyer said. "It was just some first game jitters."
Ball State had 11 serving errors after the first two games, including seven in the second game, and finished the match with 14 total.
"I didn't think we served very well, and we made too many serving errors," Walton said. "We served 85 percent in [play], and our goal is to put 88 percent of our serves in play."
The Cardinals also finished the game with 15 attack errors and three assist errors.
"Offensively we are working some kinks out, and that is partly due to a freshman setter and some early match jitters," Walton said. "Some of our hitters needed to do a better job with the sets they were given."
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