At the beginning of Wednesday morning's practice the No. 9 Ball State University men's volleyball team was doing a drill for about two minutes when coach Joel Walton walked out to the middle of the Irving Gym court and told his players to stop.
The coach then spent the next 20 seconds instructing his players to do the warm-up drill right or not do it all.
Six days after sweeping then-No. 7 UCLA, Walton is making sure his team is focused for its Friday road match against No. 15 IPFW.
"IPFW is a dangerous team," Walton said. "They are dangerous because they have struggled this year, and because of that our guys could be overlooking them and thinking it will be an easy match. It will not be an easy match."
IPFW is in fifth place in the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association and is two matches behind first-place Ball State (12-6, 5-1 MIVA), which holds the tie-breaker against No. 11 Ohio State University (9-6, 5-1 MIVA). In addition, the Cardinals have won 11 of their last 12 matches, including five consecutive wins against nationally ranked teams.
Middle attacker Matt McCarthy said despite the team's recent success against UCLA, the main goal this season remains to beat MIVA teams and win a conference championship.
"It's kind of like getting back to business," he said. "Even though UCLA was a fun weekend, it doesn't mean much because it's not a conference match."
IPFW has lost its last three matches against nationally ranked teams, with its most recent being a five-game home loss to No. 13 Loyola-Chicago University on Friday.
In the preseason coaches poll the Mastodons were predicted to win the MIVA after they lost two starters from a team that advanced to the NCAA Championship match last season.
"They are backed into a corner," Walton said. "They are a program that has pride, and they have to win this match to have a legitimate chance at winning the regular season championship. Right now it's do-or-die time for them."
Following its Friday match the Cardinals will have five more MIVA matches. Three of those matches will be on the road at Mercyhurst College, Ohio State and fourth-place Lewis University.
Setter Ethan Pheister said, because of their remaining schedule, for the Cardinals to win their first MIVA championship since 2002 they have beat IPFW.
In addition, Walton said his team likes knowing it controls its own destiny, but he also said they can easily lose that control with a poor performance.
"It's control that won't be easy to maintain, and we have to fight for it," he said. "We have to decide the regular-season conference championship is something we want and aggressively go after it."
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