Following an intense stretch of nine matches in 19 days, the Penn State men's volleyball team took their week off to prepare for Saturday's matchup at Concordia (NY).
Rest just might be what the Nittany Lions (11-2, 6-0 EIVA) need. Dating back to Jan. 29, the Lions have won all nine of their matches, highlighted by a win against top-ranked Stanford, eight three-game sweeps of opponents and six EIVA conference wins. "I think we're at that time of year where I'm more concerned that we keep the arms and legs fresh," Lions coach Mark Pavlik said. Pavlik said that the team has responded well to the time off.
"This team is a little bit more mature and a little bit more experienced," Pavlik said. "We give them a day of rest so that they can rest and I think they're taking good advantage of it and coming in the gym pretty fresh."
Even though practice has been scaled down this week, the team is still focused on the job at hand. "We're doing a lot of fine-tuning fundamentals right now, so I'm sure we'll be a little bit better when we come back this weekend," junior middle hitter Zach Slenker said during practice this week.
Concordia (5-6, 3-3 EIVA) is Penn State's final opponent in the first half of their EIVA schedule, and with an 11-3 record last year in the EIVA, the Clippers may pose the biggest threat to the Lions' perfect 6-0 record in the EIVA this year. Penn State has played Concordia in the EIVA Tournament finals for two straight years, sweeping them both times, 30-27, 30-22, 30-19 in 2001 and 15-7, 15-7, 15-7 in 1999.
"Concordia's always a big match," junior outside hitter Kevin Hodge said. "Those guys are always out to get us."
It's pretty tough playing there — they've got good fans. We just have to have the mindset that we're going to go in there and take care of business."
To avoid any implications on the Lions' postseason, the consensus among players and coaches is that a win is critical.
"If we finish 7-0, that puts us in a real good position to get the top seed in the East and host the EIVA championships," Pavlik said. "If we win there, it makes it real tough. If they want to finish ahead of us in the EIVA, they're going to have to come here and beat us and I think that we're real tough to beat at Rec Hall."
In his first year of collegiate volleyball, Concordia's Diego Escobar is leading the NCAA Div. I statistical leaders in kills per game with 5.41 a game. Pavlik said that though Escobar is a good hitter, his blockers are pretty confident against big hitters.
"I think we're going to touch him a lot and see if we can frustrate him a little bit by not having him bounce balls or hit the ball without anybody touching it," Pavlik said. "If we can touch him and keep touching him and stuff him every now and then all of the sudden a hitter's mindset can change."
Pavlik said that Penn State's success will depend on how well the team serves and how well the team blocks.
"If the ball is on our side of the net and we get a chance to swing, we're going to make the other team pay," he said.
Hodge said the team is going to approach this game the same way it approaches every game.
"We just have to make sure that we keep working hard in practice and that we're not looking down on any team that we play," he said. "It's not over until we get a 'W'."
