Caught napping

Spikers shocked by Mastadons, flatten Juniata

Some teams need a good scare to wake them up and get them back in the game, but sometimes it comes too late.

No. 9 Indiana-Purdue at Fort Wayne slapped Penn State with a grueling loss (15-9, 8-15, 3-15, 15-10, 14-16) on Saturday after the Nittany Lions' easy win against Juniata (15-8, 15-4, 15-12) on Friday.

With swing hitter David Gealey and middle blocker Sergio Pampena out of the lineup for the Lions, Penn State coach Mark Pavlik was forced to adjust his starting six. Eric Houston started for Gealey and Dan Hoechst started for Pampena.

Indiana-Purdue took an early 2-0 lead in the first game, but solid blocking put the Lions ahead 12-4. The Mastadons tried to mount a late attack, but the Lions finished them off 15-9.

In the second game, Indiana-Purdue turned up the heat and Penn State quickly found itself down 2-11. The Lions capitalized on Indiana-Purdue errors and started to come back but ended up losing 8-15.

The Mastadons dealt the Lions an embarrassing 3-15 loss in the third game. After that rude wake-up call, Pavlik looked to true freshman swing hitter Steve Aird to pick up the pace for Penn State.

"We needed somebody to settle our passing down," Pavlik said. "Steve's a pretty good passer and he brought a great energy to the court. He did what we asked him to do."

Aird gave exactly what the team needed. In the fourth game alone, Aird had six kills on eight attempts and two key blocks. He played a crucial part in the Lions' 15-10 win in the fourth game.

The Mastadons dealt Penn State another blow in the fifth game by jumping out to an early 5-1 lead. Although the Lions battled back to tie the game, the match ended with a stunning 14-16 defeat.

"I was pretty disappointed that we didn't take care of business when we had to," Aird said. "We're going to keep competing and keep going hard, but it's just matches like that you want to win."

Penn State played hard Friday night against Juniata. With outstanding offense from Houston and middle blocker Brad Miller, Penn State won the first game 15-8.

After the Lions slapped the Eagles with a 15-4 win in the second game, the Eagles battled back and Penn State found itself down 4-7 in the third game. The game went back and forth until the Lions finally won 15-12.

Although they are happy with the win, they recognize that if they don't keep comebacks to a minimum, they may find themselves in trouble.

"Even though we jumped to a 5-0 lead in the first game, we need to stretch that out," setter Dan Pollock said. "Our problem is we give up streaks of points in a row. If they get a point, we have to side out right away."

Siding out was a big problem for the Lions against Indiana-Purdue. They allowed multiple scoring spurts which hurt them a lot.

Penn State, although down by large margins at times, never let the Mastadons walk away with the match. Pavlik said he recognized the team's competitive attitude as a desire to win.

"We've got to have guys step on the court at that time as a team and just say, 'We refuse to lose' and not, 'I hope we don't lose,' " Pavlik said. "That is our competitive maturity."