Ball State lost its home opener
Ball State was unable to overcome UC Irvine’s block
Kevin Owens led Ball State’s under powered offense
There was too much serving, too much defense and not enough kills.
The men’s volleyball team dropped its season opener 0-3 (21-25) (16-25) (17-25) to defending national champion UC Irvine. Ball State was overpowered in the defeat.
“We were looking at two or three blockers throughout most of the night, and our attackers got really timid,” Ball State head coach Joel Walton said. “Their serve kept us off balance all night long.”
UC Irvine finished with six aces, often leaving Ball State defenders speechless and looking at each other to decipher what went wrong.
“In game one, we caved up a couple of aces on balls that they didn’t hit with great pace,” Walton said. “But they got them to places where our guys didn’t communicate, and somebody should have been making a play.”
Swerving and fast, UC Irvine’s serves forced Ball State out of position often, leaving players scrambling for the ball.
After returning a few serves with solid passes, the Cardinals encountered stretches where players fell silent and movement on defense suffered.
“We inconsistently handled their serves,” senior middle attacker Kevin Owens said. “We did a good job for a while, but then our attackers started making some errors, and it was really back and forth.”
When the Cardinals managed to return serves, passes were too low, too high and not in ideal spots for senior setter Graham McIlvaine to feed the ball to attackers.
McIlvaine wasn’t able to properly hide where he wanted to set the ball, allowing the visiting Anteaters to shift extra blocking help to the side where they predicted the Cardinals would attack.
Almost every time, UC Irvine predicted correctly.
Nearly every attack was deflected into the waiting forearms of a UC Irvine player or back onto Ball State’s side of the court. Ball State finished the match with just 26 kills to go along with 22 errors.
UC Irvine had 11.5 blocks and had five players who recorded at least three block assists. The advantage allowed the visitor to control tempo throughout the course of the match, becoming stronger as the night went on.
“They had a big block, and they dug around well, which was frustrating for our offense,” Owens said. “It took us out of our game.”
In a push for offense, Walton inserted Matt Sutherland, who Walton said had a great week of practice. The junior outside attacker finished with just one kill in limited time.
Owens and freshman Brendan Surane were two of the few players who managed to find holes in UC Irvine’s defense. The pair registered eight and six kills throughout the match, one in which Ball State hit just .048.
Surane also added six errors and said he felt nervous before the match, the first of his collegiate career.
After hitting a multitude of attack errors to begin the game, UC Irvine settled in as the energy from Worthen Arena ebbed. With Ball State’s outside attackers struggling to put away chances, UC Irvine capitalized and won momentum and eventually the match.
Both Walton and Owens pointed most of Ball State’s problems toward the serving and defense displayed by the opponent.
“They were surprisingly scrappy,” Owens said. “But we weren’t as crisp all around as we want to be.”
As the match came to a close, Ball State went on a 4-0 run before Zach La Cavera ended the match with his 18th kill of the evening.
Too much for Ball State.
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