The Lions gear up to take on Ohio State
For all the volleyball fans, the match that is scheduled to take place between the Ohio State and Penn State men’s volleyball teams may well be one of the best seen during this season.
Both the teams have been playing professional volleyball and have formed commendable team synergies.
Even though Ohio State University is deemed to be superior in skill than their upcoming rivals, Penn State’s coach thinks that his team is fully equipped to take them on. However, Mark Pavlik does not underestimate the expertise of Ohio State.
“They’ve been together, they know what to expect from each other, and they don’t try to do anything that is more than they can do”, Pavlik said. “They’ll create opportunities for themselves and they’ve got the hitters and setter to close it out”.
Penn State is not being overwhelmed by playing a nationally ranked team, rather, they are taking it as an opportunity to step up their play and come up to the challenge.
According to Edgardo Goas, the junior setter for the Lions, Ohio State is a better team now than it was the season before. The Buckeyes feature three fifth year senior players as well as two juniors. Despite this fact, Goas is looking forward to the match
with true competitive spirit.
In the year gone by, both the teams confronted each other three times. Out of those three confrontations, the Lions were able to defeat the Buckeyes twice. One such match, which the Lions won was played in Hawaii at the Outrigger Invitational tournament.
The third match that the Lions lost was by 3-1. The team was only able to put up two aces and dotted the match with 16 service errors. However, Ohio State was outhit by Penn State at .314 to .283.
Only three weeks ago, the Lions were able to manage a significant victory over the Buckeyes. Ohio State had themselves swept by Penn State at 3-0. Prominent amongst the Ohio State players was Shawn Sangrey, a junior, who was able to register a total number
of 20 kills for his team in the match.
In contrast to this, the Lions were able to maintain a better hitting average as four of their players made at least nine kills in the entire match. Two of those are still on the team, namely, Ryan Wolf and Joe Sunder, both of whom are juniors.
According to coach Pavlik, the key to stay in control of the upcoming match will be to not to let Ohio State take a significant lead.
He expressed himself in the following words: “If they get some separation it’s really tough to get close to them because they’re not going to make things easier for you”.
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