Saturday night, 500-plus fans witnessed the last regular-season match of five seniors that have done more for the No. 11 Penn State men's volleyball (17-7, 11-1 EIVA) in the last four years than most fans can recount.
Each senior, with a parent in each arm, came out to announcements of their accolades throughout their career and cheers from the fans.
The seniors included captains Matt Proper and Nate Meerstein, Dan O'Dell, Kevin Wentzel and Andrew Price. The last regular-season opponent these five would face would be Lewis (9-16).
That obviously didn't bode well for the Flyers. They were dispatched
handily, and rather quickly, to the tune of a 3-0 sweep (30-28, 30-24, 30-22).
"It was real emotional in the beginning, tears were shed, mostly by Proper and Meers. They were crying," O'Dell joked. "We had to make sure we won and just go from there."
The seniors went on to explain just how it felt to be honored for their final regular season match.
"Honestly, when you look up at the scoreboard and see your name up there, it's like, 'Whoa, I only have a couple weeks left,' and that's tough," Proper said.
In a way, though, the last regular season match was a bit anticlimactic.
The reason for that is because Penn State hosts the EIVA tournament April 27-29. Afterward, Rec Hall plays host to the NCAA Championships the first week of May.
So technically, this wasn't the seniors' last home match. They will still play a good four to six matches on this floor before it's all said and done.
"I knew that wasn't my last game in this gym, so I'm sure that [the last] game will be much more emotional than this one was," Wentzel said. "But that one, I won't know until after the game is over."
But in the regular-season home finale, the seniors made sure to put on a show.
Proper lead the charge tying for a match-high 16 kills on a .636 clip. Meerstein had five kills, hitting .417 and added two blocks.
O'Dell tossed up 37 assists while getting six digs on the defensive end. Wentzel added six kills and four digs.
It was Price that stole the show, though. Coming into play in the middle of the third game, he tallied six kills (one off his career high) on eight swings for a .625 hitting percentage.
"When Price came in, all of a sudden our physical level just shot out of the roof," head coach Mark Pavlik said. "Maybe I should've had Pricey in there the first 15 points of Game 1 if he was going to do that. That's the way we need to play."
There will be no time for quiet reflection on their work done in the last four years, though. With only three weeks left, the team knows it's still not where it needs to be to get the highly coveted NCAA championship.
"I know on offense we're going to be fine," Pavlik said. "But we need to block some balls. This is a senior-laden group and they know what they need to do to keep playing."
The match will be re-broadcast by College Sports Television (CSTV) at 9 p.m. Wednesday.
Extra notes
There were actually six people that were celebrated during senior night. Aside from the players, team manager Dong Kim was also honored.
Alex Gutor chipped in 10 kills for the Lions and it didn't go unnoticed by his fans, including a group of his friends (at least one from the Ukraine) that stood up and waved the Ukraine flag every time he scored a point.
