Upon winning the AVCA co-player of the year award Wednesday, Matt Anderson said it was now time for him to live up to the hype.
After his performance in last night's national semifinal match, it seems Anderson is up to the task.
Anderson's 30 kills carried the No. 1 Penn State men's volleyball team to a 3-1 victory (30-21, 26-30, 30-22, 30-17) over No. 4 Ohio State in the NCAA semifinals last night in Irvine, Calif. With the win, the Nittany Lions (29-1) advance to the national championship match at 7 tomorrow night.
"I give a lot of the accolades to the passing tonight for that," Anderson said in a telephone interview, referring to his performance. "Dennis [Del Valle] played out of his mind tonight, and Jay [Stauffer] passed well, and that set everything up for me to do my thing."
After dropping Game 2 to the Buckeyes and trailing early in Game 3, Anderson stepped up his game, recording seven of Penn State's first 12 points and ending the third game with 13 kills. For the match, the junior from West Seneca, N.Y., hit on a .469 clip.
Anderson got help most of the match from opposite Ryan Sweitzer, who continued his impressive play against Ohio State (20-8) this year. Sweitzer, normally Penn State's third go-to guy after Anderson and middle hitter Max Holt, tallied 17 kills on 33 swings.
"Luke [Murray] did a good job of taking what the defense gave him," Penn State coach Mark Pavlik said. "They were sending one guy over to block Sweitzer, and I don't think one guy can contain him."
Attacking from opposite sides of the net, Anderson and Sweitzer powered attacks around the Ohio State defense all night. Most of Sweitzer's assistance came early in the match, as the opposite recording a .579 hitting percentage in the match's first two games.
"We didn't feel we needed to switch anything up," Anderson said. "When Luke got the ball, he was just throwing it at us, and even if it is just two of us, we feel we can produce."
Not only did Anderson contribute to Penn State's offense, he helped turn the tide of the match on defense as well. In Game 3, he and Max Lipsitz recorded two consecutive blocks to cushion the Lions' lead. The blocks were a part of a 7-1 Penn State run that sealed the match.
Lipsitz's presence at the net forced the Buckeyes to attack from the outside. The middle hitter recorded 12 blocks on the match, including a stretch in Game 3 in which his blocks accounted for five of Penn State's seven points. Dominance like that, Anderson said, does more than provide points for the team.
"That takes their whole team out of it," Anderson said. "You'll see teams start playing it safe, chopping it. They don't want to make any errors."
Anderson's offense and Lipsitz's defense provided backup for Holt, who was shut down by Ohio State's blocking. Shadowed all night by Buckeyes Ben Spurlock and Ted Schoenfeldt, Holt couldn't contribute to the offense the way the Lions expected. In the first two games of the match, the most efficient attacker in the country recorded just two kills and hit only .111.
"To use a basketball reference, it's a lot like when someone is denying a scorer the ball," Pavlik said. "Spurlock's a big boy, and he was able to keep Max under wraps.
"But you've got to understand that when there's a big boy in front of a big boy, there will be open guys. And we found those guys tonight."
