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Ohio State Mens Volleyball (2011, 2016, 2017 National Champions)

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Men’s Volleyball: Back-to-back NCAA champ Ohio State prepares to face back-to-back runner-up BYU

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The No. 1 Ohio State men’s volleyball team will face a familiar foe on Saturday: No. 7 BYU.

The Buckeyes (1-0) beat the Cougars (1-1) in back-to-back national championship games, which means St. John Arena could have a tournament-like feel at 7 p.m. Saturday when the two teams take the court.

The Buckeyes also will welcome Stanford (0-3) to Columbus for a 7 p.m. contest Friday.

In addition to being national championship runner-ups, the Cougars have a powerful offense led by three seniors — outside attacker Brenden Sander, middle blocker Price Jarman and setter Leo Durkin — who were named to the preseason All-American team.

Sophomore outside hitter Storm Fa’agata-Tufuga (28 kills, .333 hitting percentage in first match of season) and freshman opposite hitter Gabi Garcia Fernandez (35 kills, .288 hitting percentage in first match of season) also will pose a challenge for the Buckeyes.

Redshirt junior middle blocker Blake Leeson believes his team’s match against BYU will be a necessary early test.

“Right now, in the season, we aren’t as ready as we will be by the end of the year,” he said. “We still have a lot of kinks to work out at different positions… I’m looking forward to this weekend to see where we match up against some of the top teams in the country.”

Ohio State senior outside hitter Nicolas Szerszen, the Volleyball Magazine National Player of the Year in both 2016 and 2017, jump-started his final collegiate season with the most votes for the preseason All-American team. He said he is excited to play against BYU in a nonchampionship setting for the first time.

“They’re more of a physical team, where we’re more a technical team,” Szerszen said. “We still have to improve in a lot of technical components of our game … They might be more ready than us right now, but we’ll just see how it goes, give it our best, and play hard.”

Entire article: https://www.thelantern.com/2018/01/...-prepares-to-face-back-to-back-runner-up-byu/
 
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Men’s Volleyball: No. 7 Ohio State closes out regular season on road against pair of ranked opponents

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The No. 7 Ohio State men’s volleyball team (19-4, 10-2 MIVA) will travel to neighboring Indiana to challenge No. 15 Fort Wayne and No. 12 Ball State Friday and Saturday for the team’s final two regular-season matches of the season.

Ohio State head coach Pete Hanson said he’s feeling good entering this weekend after his team had a pair of dominant outings against Loyola and Lewis with 3-1 and 3-0 victories, respectively.

“Obviously, the hope is, can we take that on the road and can we play in a hostile environment in Fort Wayne on Friday and in Ball State on Saturday and do those same types of things where we don’t have our home crowd, we don’t have that energy to feed off,” Hanson said. “I would like to think that we can.”

Fort Wayne

The Buckeyes will face the Mastodons (17-9, 5-7 MIVA) Friday for the second time this year. Earlier this season, Fort Wayne’s offensive play was not enough to slow down Ohio State’s robust offense, and the Buckeyes ultimately beat the visitors 3-0 on Feb. 10.

Since then, the Mastodons have dropped seven matches, plummeting to sixth in the eight-team MIVA conference after beginning the season with a 9-0 overall record.

In contrast, the Buckeyes have been more successful, winning 10 of 12 matches and climbing their way to the top of the MIVA ladder.

Ohio State junior setter Sanil Thomas said the Buckeyes can’t take their recent success for granted because he believes Fort Wayne to be a formidable opponent.

“They beat Irvine earlier this year, so you know they can bring it,” Thomas said. “If we don’t prepare well then we can easily get beaten, but I think it’s just good that we had these past two matches to build our confidence in that regard.”

Entire article: https://www.thelantern.com/2018/04/...son-on-road-against-pair-of-ranked-opponents/
 
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