As coach Joel Walton sat watching his players walk off the Worthen Arena court, the only reaction he had was to throw his three-ring binder about five feet behind the bench.
For a coach who does not show much emotion on the sidelines, frustration might be too weak a word for what Walton was feeling.
After having a two-game lead against first-place Ohio State University, the No. 14 Ball State University men's volleyball team lost the final three games to lose the match 27-30, 21-30, 30-26, 30-27, 15-10 on Friday.
This is Ball State's (13-8, 4-4 Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association) fourth five-game conference loss in the last three weeks - losing all the matches by a combined 14 points. The loss also eliminated the Cardinals from winning the MIVA regular season championship and extends the program's streak to seven years without winning the title.
"I'm disappointed. I'm frustrated," Walton said. "Now more than ever they have to stay together and keep believing and find with everything they've got to not let this lose define our season."
Ball State has lost its last four matches against Ohio State, including a five-game loss March 11 in Columbus, Ohio.
In the first two games Friday, Ball State out-hit Ohio State .328 to .203. The Buckeyes, though, had a higher attack percentage in the final three games, including holding the Cardinals to a -.136 attack percentage in game five.
Walton said Ohio State became successful later in the match because it started to set more balls to its left outside attacker. The coach also said his team did not make any adjustments to Ohio State's new strategy.
"It's almost as if teams are figuring out things we did in the middle of the match, and then we stop being effective," Walton said. "We've got to make sure when teams adapt we adapt and match along with them."
Ball State had four players finish the match with at least 10 kills, including middle attacker J.D. Gasparovic.
Leading the conference in attack percentage, Gasparovic had 12 kills and a .320 attack percentage - .174 percentage points below his season average.
The all-conference middle attacker said he was disappointed with the way Ball State played throughout the match.
"We didn't play to our full potential," he said. "We started out great and then we let a few errors get to us, and after that Ohio State started playing great as well. It was not working as well as it could have been."
With the score 10-10 in the third game, Ohio State went on a 13-5 run to take its largest lead of the match and win its first game.
Ball State started the fourth game on a 6-0 run but lost by three points as Ohio State had 21 kills and a .410 attack percentage in the game. The Cardinals were also leading 26-23 before the Buckeyes scored the next seven points to win the game and force a game five.
"To not be able to come up with one offensive play to put the ball away is just brutal," Walton said.
The Buckeyes had an 8-3 run with the game five tied at seven to win the match. In the fifth game, Ohio State had one attack error and seven kills.
Walton said he did not think any Ball State players performed at their best Friday.
"It's hard to come up with any positives," Walton said. "The only thing we did well was start, but we didn't play a very good middle match and we didn't finish when we had opportunities in game four."
With this win, Ohio State (10-9, 6-1 MIVA) remains in first place in the conference - leading second place No. 11 Lewis University by one match - and has three remaining MIVA regular season matches.
The Cardinals will play one of their two final conference matches today against Quincy University at 7:30 p.m. in Worthen Arena. If Ball State wins its final two conference matches it will be guaranteed a home match in the MIVA Tournament quarterfinals in late April.
After the loss to Ohio State, Gasparovic said beating last-place Quincy becomes even more important for Ball State.
"I personally don't want to end a weekend with that kind of performance," he said. "I want to come out against Quincy. We've got to get some confidence back."
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