Volleyball: Men's

It was another match, another sweep for the Penn State men’s volleyball team Friday night.

This time the victim was Harvard, a team coming into the match in third place in the EIVA with a record of 6-1.

The Nittany Lions swept their third straight EIVA opponent, winning the match against the Crimson 3-0 (25-20, 25-13, 25-17). Redshirt freshman Nick Goodell led the team with a match-high 15 kills, which helped Penn State, now 9-1, cruise to its seventh straight victory.

Goodell got Penn State’s offense off to a blistering start with a whopping seven kills in the first set, without any attacking errors.

Penn State hit .625 in this set and Goodell was a big reason why.

Goodell sustained this offensive eruption over the next two sets as well, finishing with a fantastic hitting percentage of .750. He produced only one attacking error on a hefty 20 attempts in the match.

Although Penn State had just three blocks in the match, the Lions’ defense held Harvard to a hitting percentage of just .227. This isn’t to say the Crimson handed the match to Penn State with countless errors, though — Harvard had just 11 attacking errors.

One of the main reasons Penn State’s defense succeeded was its back-row defense. The Lions had 24 digs in the match, led by freshman libero Connor Curry with nine.

Besides Goodell, other standout performers on offense were sophomore outside hitter Peter Russell with eight kills on .462, freshman middle hitter Aaron Russell with seven (.778), and redshirt senior outside hitter Joe Sunder also with seven (.133).

Redshirt senior setter Edgardo Goas paced the offense with 38 assists, and also added six digs on defense.

Penn State’s next match is tomorrow at 8 against (4-8) Sacred Heart in Connecticut.