This was not the television debut coach Joel Walton had in mind for his No. 15 Ball State University men's volleyball team.
Playing in front of 1,061 people and with its home match being locally televised for the first time in two years, Ball State was swept by No. 7 Penn State University 30-20, 30-28, 30-16 Friday.
"They literally blew us out," Walton said. "It's not something you can point a finger at any one person or two or three people. It was a team shellacking we took. We did it as a group."
Ball State gave up a season-worst 15 aces to the defending NCAA champions, including seven aces in the first game. Penn State middle attacker Max Holt had a match-high six aces as four of the team's six starters collected multiple aces.
Walton said the biggest reason for the sweep was because Penn State's serving kept Ball State off balance throughout the match. The coach also said he is one of the people to blame for his team's struggles handling the Nittany Lions' servers.
"Obviously I didn't prepare our team well enough for the kind of serving we were going to see because we just couldn't handle it," Walton said. "We weren't ready for them to serve as many balls with the kind of pace they put on it [Friday]. The fault goes all the way around."
In his 19th season as a Ball State coach, Walton said this was the best serving performance he has seen since playing Stanford University in the 1997 NCAA Final Four.
Setter Ethan Pheister also said Penn State's serving made it so difficult for Ball State to compete that the team was less upset than it usually is following a loss.
"If they are going to come in and play that well there are not many teams in the country that are going to beat them," Pheister said. "I'm not too upset with it."
The Nittany Lions (21-3, 12-0 Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association) entered this weekend leading the nation a 2.07 aces per game average.
Penn State coach Mark Pavlik said serving has been a big strength for his team all season. With how the team practiced this week, the coach also said he was not surprised all his players were able to make difficult serves.
"That's the way we have been serving the last three or four weeks," Pavlik said. "These guys have bought into the idea that if we take care of business behind the serving line we are going to get chances for easy points."
Pavlik said the last month his team has played its best volleyball the entire season. However, he said he did not expect Penn State to beat Ball State as easily as it did.
Penn State out-hit Ball State (15-9, 6-4 Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association) .395 to .132 and had more than a .500 attack percentage in the first and third games.
The 14-point loss in game three was the Cardinals' third worst defeat since the rally scoring era began in 2002. In that game, Ball State also hit a season-worst -.040 attack percentage and had six kills.
Standing on the team's sidelines during the game, Walton said, it was difficult to watch Ball State lose a game by that many points.
"That's brutal. It's hard to be on the receiving end of that tattooing," Walton said. "What our guys need to take from that is just seeing how Penn State plays and realizing that's the level we're working to get to."
Ball State was without its starting, all-conference middle attacker J.D. Gasparovic for the match because of an illness.
In Gasparovic's absence, middle attacker Matt McCarthy made his first start since Feb. 5. Having missed most of the season because of stress fracture in his back, the 2008 First Team All-MIVA player had two kills and two blocks in the loss.
Walton said with the injury preventing McCarthy from a practicing constantly, it was difficult for setter Ethan Pheister and him to get into an offensive rhythm. The coach also said he is not sure how much of a difference Gasparovic could have made in the match because Penn State is the most physical team in the nation.
"It is tough to be that out-matched," he said. "It's not like there are real easy solutions other than we've got to recruit better or when we get the guys here on campus we have to make them physically better, because we were just truly out-classed [Friday] by a very superior team."
Termion's proposalFollowing the end of the first game, senior outside attacker Mark Termion proposed to his girlfriend of four years Katie Meyer. Below is a video of the accepted proposal and an interview with Termion.
VIDEO: Mark Termion's proposal
VIDEO: Daily News/WCRD post-game extra
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
