Spikers take advantage of weak conference schedule

By JOSH DAECHE
Collegian Staff Writer

With the men's volleyball season in full swing, there are only two teams left that can call themselves perfect.

As the season begins to enter its third month of action, most teams are now playing conference matches.

Though its record is deceiving, Penn State may have an advantage over most NCAA Tournament-worthy teams. That's because the Nittany Lions are a part of one of the weakest conferences in the country.

The No. 11 Nittany Lions (7-10, 2-0 Tait) moved up three spots from last week's USA Today/AVCA Coaches' poll after last weekend's wins against No. 8 Indiana-Purdue at Fort Wayne and Ball State and loss to No. 6 Ohio State.

Though Penn State is three games below .500, coach Mark Pavlik is not surprised how the Lions have played this season.

"We are about where we expected to be at," Pavlik said. "The Fort Wayne game was good for us. We played solid but not spectacular."

While most will agree Penn State's performances this season have been far from spectacular, they seem more the status quo within the context of the ups and downs of this volleyball season.

Around the hardwood

BYU remained No. 1 for the second week in a row after extending its record to 13-0 and 9-0 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation conference. The Cougars captured 14 of the 16 first-place votes this week.

BYU is led by a pair of AVCA Player of the Year candidates, Ossie Antonetti and Ryan Millar. Antonetti has 201 kills on 389 attempts this season, while his counterpart Millar has posted a team-high 215 kills and a .510 overall hitting percentage.

BYU's two biggest tests of the season come at 7 p.m. tomorrow and 5 p.m. Saturday when the Cougars host back-to-back games with No. 2 UCLA in Provo, Utah.

If BYU has any intentions of winning the national championship this season, the Cougars know they will need to set the stage this weekend by knocking off last year's NCAA champions.

No. 2 UCLA (11-2, 9-1 MPSF) knocked off UC Santa Barbara in less than two hours last Friday. The Bruins had a team- and season-high 56 digs and out-hit the Gauchos .299 to .190. It was UCLA's 94th all-time win in the series.

No. 3 Long Beach State (9-0, 7-0 MPSF) went 2-0 last week. The 49ers knocked off No. 7 Hawaii last Wednesday and No. 10 USC last Saturday.

The 49ers hope to remain undefeated when they take on No. 12 Stanford tomorrow and Stockton on Saturday.

No. 4 Pepperdine (11-1, 8-1 MPSF) is back on track thanks to this week's AVCA Player of the Week, George Roumain.

Roumain had a Div. I season-high 47 kills on 77 attacks in a win over Pacific. Roumain also helped the Wave capture a win over Stanford last Saturday with 27 kills on 49 attempts.

No. 5 Lewis (10-2) rounds out the top five after going 3-0 last week. The Flyers had wins over No. 13 Loyola (Chicago), Rutgers-Newark and George Mason. Next up for the Flyers is divisional rival No. 6 Ohio State Saturday.