Ball State men’s volleyball MIVA Loyola Chicago postseason win sweep
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MUNCIE, Ind. — When the moment arrived, Ball State men’s volleyball came ready to seize it.
The No. 11 Cardinals on Thursday enjoyed one of their most impressive victories of the season, a 3-0 sweep (25-21, 25-18, 27-25) over No. 10 Loyola Chicago at Worthen Arena. Sophomore outside hitter Tinaishe Ndavazocheva led with 15 kills, followed by fifth-year outside attacker Kaleb Jenness with 11.
The evening marked the latest in what’s been a late-season elevation in the team’s play, and BSU entered the match eager to see how it’d fare against a top foe.
“I feel like tonight guys were just looking at it like this is a way to test our team,” Ndavazocheva said. “Like, ‘How good are we playing? How good are we practicing?’ and we put some more effort in and we got results.”
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Not only was the win BSU’s fifth straight, but it also kept alive its chance of securing a piece of the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA) regular-season title and the No. 1 seed in next week’s conference tournament.
MIVA No. 2 Ball State (17-8, 10-3 MIVA) now holds the tie-breaker with the No. 1 Ramblers (21-5, 11-2 MIVA), who travel to No. 3 Ohio State, the winners of seven straight matches, on Saturday. If Loyola Chicago loses to the Buckeyes and BSU wins Saturday’s home match against No. 4 Purdue Fort Wayne, the Cardinals will claim the top spot.
Head coach Donan Cruz’s squad had already clinched a home contest for the quarterfinal round of the MIVA tournament on Saturday, April 15, but he made sure his players were aware of exactly what was at stake against the Ramblers and said it was good to put a little pressure of the team heading into the postseason.
Meeting the occasion with such a dominant performance proved that Ball State’s end-of-season improvement is legitimate. It started with a 3-1 home win over Quincy on March 24 and carried over on the road and now back to Worthen where the Cardinals are playing with more confidence, chemistry and fewer mistakes.
“I think some of it is just consistency, man. Consistency in how we train, consistency of guys embracing their role,” Cruz said. “In any season where you’re putting in new pieces, people really have to figure out how to buy into what we’re asking them to do and and remain coachable and remain for the team, and I think that was the biggest thing is trusting in that process, trusting in the team, and now we’re really starting to play some of our best volleyball.”
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Arguably BSU’s biggest fix came in its serving. The team repeatedly put itself behind or kept opponents in matches throughout this season by committing 13.4 service errors per match through its first 20 matches, in which it went 12-8.
At that point, the Cardinals’ season was shaping up to be far different than last season’s 23-4 triumph…
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