The Ball State men's volleyball team will play No. 7 Penn State University at 7 p.m. Friday in University Park, Pa. The Cardinals (7-3, 2-3 Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association) enter this match in fourth place in the MIVA, and the Nittany Lions (8-2, 4-0 Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association) are in first place in the EIVA.
Below are some news and notes about the match.
Battle of blockers: Nelson vs. Lipsitz
Two of the nation's top five blockers will face each other when Ball State middle attacker Anders Nelson goes up against Penn State middle attacker Max Lipsitz.
In his second season at the Division I level, Nelson is third in the nation and leading the MIVA with 56 blocks. Lipsitz, a 2009 All-American, second in the nation and EIVA with 57 blocks.
Penn State coach Mark Pavlik said he is looking forward to this individual match-up. He also said he expects for both players to put up good offensive numbers in the match.
Lipsitz is averaging 3.28 kills per game — the third best average on Penn State — while Nelson's 2.18 kills per game average is the fourth best average on Ball State. In addition, Nelson has at least 10 kills in two of the Cardinals' last three matches.
Pavlik said he this match-up could be similar to the one Lipsitz faced in Penn State's two victories last week against Laval University, the top-ranked Canadian men's volleyball team.
In the final match — a four-game win for Penn State — Lipsitz had a team-high 18 kills and Laval middle attacker Jonathan Marcoux had 14 kills.
"You have two good middle attacker and you're not having much success stopping them. I imagine Friday being a lot like that," Pavlik said.
Walton not as worried about Penn State's serving
This will be the first time the two teams will play each other since Penn State had 15 aces in a sweep against Ball State last season.
Ball State coach Joel Walton said after the match that it was one of the best serving performances he had seen during his more than 20 years in college volleyball. However, Ball State is not expecting a similar severing performance Friday, Walton said.
"I don't think Penn State is as strong at serving as last year," he said. "We just have to make sure our passers have their passing caps on."
Penn State leads the EIVA with 61 aces and is fifth in the nation with a 1.65 aces per game average.
Walton said he is less concerned about Penn State's serving this year, though, because the team is without All-American middle attacker Max Holt. Holt, who graduated in 2009, had six aces in the sweep against Ball State last year and finished his senior season leading the EIVA with 79 aces.
Walton said this year Penn State has more spin and float servers. Unlike Holt who would jump serve, these types of serves are not as fast and usually result in fewer aces.
Talk about a home court advantage
Ball State was the last team to defeat Penn State at home in the regular season — the only problem for Walton with that stat is no one on his current roster was a part of the victory.
The Nittany Lions have won 51 consecutive home matches since losing to the Cardinals in January 2006 — the longest active home winning streak in men's volleyball.
"It's nice to be the last team to do that, but that was four years ago and we are putting a totally different roster," Walton said.
In that time span since its last home loss, Penn State has advanced to the NCAA Final Four four times and was the 2008 NCAA champions.
"I think we've had some pretty good teams," Pavlik said. "When we are here we have confidence and want to protect the home court. ... We don't really talk about [the home winning streak]. We talk about being 1-0 after the next match."
Tonight's match online
The Ball State-Penn State match will be live-streamed at bigtennetwork.com.
The fee to view this match is $2.99. To register to view this match, go to http://video.bigtennetwork.com/about
In addition, the match will be re-televised on the Big Ten Network at 11:30 a.m. Monday.
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