For the first time in more than a month, the No. 14 Ball State University men's volleyball team lost a match.
Ball State ended its nine-match winning streak as it lost to No. 15 Ohio State University 30-25, 20-30, 30-21, 26-30, 15-12 on Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio.
Coach Joel Walton said the team played inconsistently throughout the match. Playing in its fourth match in seven days, the coach also said fatigue was not the reason for the loss.
"It was more about us not making plays when we needed to," Walton said.
In the fifth game, the Cardinals (10-5, 4-1 Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association) had a .438 attack percentage to out-hit the Buckeyes (8-8, 5-1 MIVA). Ohio State also had three more serving errors than Ball State in the final game.
With the statistical advantage though, Walton said the Cardinals gave the Buckeyes multiple free balls that led to points.
"Every time we started to get momentum it seemed like we would miss a serve or kill, and we could never keep it," he said.
Ball State finished the match out-hitting Ohio State .306 to .268, including a .577 attack percentage in game two and a .323 attack percentage in game four. In the first and third game, though, the Cardinals had less than a .200 attack percentage.
Switching sides of the court after every game, Walton said both teams struggled to play on one side of the net.
Throughout the first four games, the winning team came from the same side of the court.
"There were some students on the bad side in my servers' ears," Walton said. "That always makes it difficult staying focused."
Outside attacker Todd Chamberlain led all players with a career-high 22 kills.
This is the second time this season Chamberlain has set a career high for kills in a Ball State loss. In the Cardinals' season-opening loss to then-No. 4 Stanford, the all-conference player had 20 kills to tie his career high.
"Todd got out and competed," Walton said. "We just came up a bit short."
With this loss, Ball State moves into second place in the MIVA and is half a match behind first-place Ohio State.
The Cardinals will play two more conference road matches in the next three days. Ball State will play No. 10 Lewis University on Friday and Loyola University on Saturday to conclude its six-match road trip.
Walton said the Cardinals will benefit from not having classes because of Spring Break in their preparation. The coach also said he is still confident his team can win a MIVA regular season title if it can win the next two matches.
"It's what we are going to work towards," Walton said.
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