Excuse the Ball State women's volleyball team if they're not very familiar with losing.
Before Ball State's 3-1 loss to Purdue Saturday night, they last time the Cardinals had left a match without a win was against Toledo in the opening round of the 2010 Mid-American Conference Tournament.
Now with one loss attached to the Cardinals record in 2011, Ball State will have to show it can rebound for the first time this season.
With its convincing victory, Purdue exposed weaknesses in Ball State's offense, stoning its attacks at the net to set a new school rally scoring record with 19 blocks in a four-game match.
Ball State's defense and ball control wasn't much better against its talented opponent. Senior middle blocker Jennifer Boyd said poor passing and execution at the net contributed the most to Ball State's eventual demise.
"I know our passing did break up a couple times," she said. "When we did get those passes in, we didn't keep up our end at the net. We just broke down a little bit in passing as a team."
Moving forward, the biggest beneficiary of losing to Purdue may be Ball State's mentality and attitude. Losing against a nationally ranked team proves the team still has a ways to go before it can reach its aspirations of making the NCAA Tournament.
"It is a good point that we did win a game, and it is something to be proud of, but [I'm} still not satisfied," senior middle blocker Kelsey Brandl said. "We've really been working on team chemistry and working together as one and I think we did that. I think there's definitely some good things that we can learn out of it."
Boyd added that Ball State will have to have a shorter memory when faced with adversity.
"I think we let [losing] get us down more than we should have, instead of just letting that point go and coming back and getting the next point," Boyd said.
With the Spartan Invitational coming up this weekend for Ball State, coach Steve Shondell is looking into the future with an up-beat attitude. He said he knows how talented his team is after it competed so hard against a top-25 team.
"It was a great experience, just being able to play against a national contender and coming out and playing with them really toe-to-toe," he said. "It's still early in the season. Now we just need to go back and build on it. We know we can play with a top team."
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