Muncie Reporter

No. 8 Men’s Volleyball Suffers 3-1 Setback to No. 11 BYU

The eighth-ranked Ball State men's volleyball team dropped a tightly contested 3-1 match to No. 11 BYU Thursday night in Worthen Arena. 

 

The Cardinals (4-3) and the Cougars (6-1) went point-for-point for most of the contest. Ball State was able to take the opening set from BYU, 26-24, after a strong serve from Bryce Behrendt and back-to-back kills from Tinaishe Ndavazocheva. 

 

After that, the Cougars dominated on both sides of the net while the Cardinals struggled, with some unforeseen miscues. Service errors also became a problem category for BSU with a team total 16. 

 

The other statistical categories went in Ball State's favor, except for service aces with BYU having nine and Ball State finished the night with only two. 

 

Ball State took early leads in the remaining three sets, but BYU made plays when it counted the most and would capitalize when the Cardinals struggled eventually taking frames two (25-23), three (25-21) and four (27-25) from Ball State.

 

For the game, Ndavazocheva turned in a season best 24 kills while teammate Kaleb Jenness had 19 kills.

 

Last season, the Cardinals dropped the first of two matches to the Cougars in Utah and went on to win the second match-up. Ball State will have another chance to repeat history this season when it hosts BYU for a second match on Saturday in Worthen Arena at 3 pm ET.

Original source can be found here.