The first time the teams met earlier this season, Penn State made quick work of both their Garden State rivals, sweeping both teams in three games. However, Penn State struggled this weekend in putting away its feisty opponents, as both matches went to four games.
"We should beat these teams in three games," said sophomore opposite Alex Weaver, who played three of four games Saturday against NJIT. "We dropped a game and we shouldn't have, but we bounced back both days."
Despite 20 kills from Guerra and 15 from junior middle hitter Zach Slenker, Rutgers-Newark took advantage of the Lions' .222 hitting percentage in the third game of Friday night's match to prevent a sweep.
Penn State men's volleyball coach Mark Pavlik said that when the Scarlet Raiders got hot, the Lions got a little bit disconcerted.
"It seemed like the harder they served the ball, the more intent we were in going to pass it," Pavlik said.
Penn State came back strong in the fourth game to put away Rutgers-Newark for not only the game, but also the rest of the regular season.
"I like that we got back to being physical," Pavlik said. "In the fourth game against Rutgers — that's where we just started to hit the ball. Sometimes we get into this mindset of we don't want to be blocked. We're big boys — swing at it."
The Lions experienced a little deja-vu in the third game against NJIT Saturday. After a dominant performance from the Penn State starting squad in which they took the first game by a 30-14 margin, Penn State's second team took over.
Pavlik said he wanted some of the team's younger players to get some game experience, but was disappointed that the team played poorly, committing 28 hitting errors in games two, three and four and hitting only .089 in the third game.
"We didn't pass very well," Pavlik said. "We didn't make smart decisions setting. And when we made smart decisions passing and setting, we didn't make smart decisions with where we were swinging. Nobody is going to sit there and say, 'Oh, you're Penn State we're going to give you a game."
In these situations, the Penn State coaching staff was looking for players to rise to the occasion and it was tough to say that the team rose very far, Pavlik said.
One player that did rise to the occasion was Weaver, who celebrated his 21st birthday with a team-high 14 kills.
"More than it being my birthday, it was nice to be able to play in front of my family," Weaver said, fresh with blue cake icing on his lips after the game. "For so many years, I was going to games watching them play when they were in college, so I would be in the backseat of the car go here, there, and everywhere so it was really nice to be able to play for them."
Weaver agreed that the team's game plan wasn't executed.
"More or less, it wasn't them playing well," Weaver said. "It was us playing sluggish. It's not a good thing, but we can turn it into a good thing by not letting it happen later. Turning a bad thing into a good thing is the way we have to look at it."
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