The roller coaster ride for Ball State University men's volleyball team continued Thursday night with a five-game come-from-behind win against IPFW in Worthen Arena.
After the second game, the Cardinals walked to the locker room in disbelief as they had blown five game points. The Mastodons scored six straight to take two-game lead into the intermission.
From that point on the Cardinals outscored the Mastodons 75-48.
"It had very little to do with me. It was just a lot about our guys," coach Joel Walton said. "We didn't make any wholesale line-up changes and just sticking with that group let them know that I thought they could do it. They found some confidence and kept it going for three straight games."
Middle attacker J.D. Gasparovic had a double-double with 18 kills and 13 blocks as he led the Cardinals in both categories.
"I think we got a good glimpse at what Ball State volleyball really is this year," Gasparovic said. "We struggled early but we came out and showed our true potential just now."
Ball State had four players with at least 10 kills including Gasparovic, outside attackers Jamion Hartley, Lee Meyer and middle attacker Anders Nelson.
Walton credited the offense outburst in part to the team's passing from setter Ethan Pheister.
"Ethan started to change up the offense a little bit," Walton said. "Ethan started to run our middles away from him, instead of on top of him and that created some gaps."
Ball State had a combined six attack errors the final three games, compared to IPFW's 31 attack errors.
The Cardinals out blocked the Mastodons by 13 and the Mastodons hit a negative attack percentage the final three games.
"Our wing blockers got in good spots and our middles closed and pressed over and gave some good funnels to our diggers," outside attacker Matt Sprague said.
Ball State improves to 9-4 (3-3 Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association) with IPFW dropping to 6-7 (2-4 MIVA).
The Cardinals are 3-0 in matches that go five games, but Thursday's victory was the first match where the Cardinals dropped the first two games.
"Unfortunately we are playing game five better than the ends of games one and two," Walton said. "Maybe that's why we are going five, but they are not giving up in the middle of matches and that says a lot about their character."
Ball State will have to rest up quickly as No. 15 Lewis University will come to Worthen Arena tonight at 7:30.
"It's going to be interesting, maybe scary is the right word, how much energy the guys left for tomorrow night," Walton said. "Tomorrow could very well be a time where we are going to see some other guys off the bench."
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