| Nate Meerstein had 14 kills and hit a season-high .700 in Saturday's upset of Long Beach State. |
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University Park, Pa., Feb. 4, 2006 - Senior Matt Proper (Guys Mills, Pa.) pounded 21 kills on .581 hitting to help the 12th-ranked Penn State men??s volleyball team upset third-ranked Long Beach State in four games (30-22, 21-30, 30-20, 30-27) Saturday night in front of 2,372 fans. The Nittany Lions even their record to 4-4 while the 49ers fall to 10-2.
The win marks the first Penn State victory over Long Beach State since March 5, 1988.
Along with Proper, senior middle hitter Nate Meerstein (Pittsburgh, Pa.) recorded 14 kills on an errorless 20 attacks to hit a season-high .700. Senior outside hitter Kevin Wentzel (Pittsburgh, Pa.) added a season-high 11 kills as freshmen Matt Anderson (West Seneca, N.Y.) and Max Holt (Cincinnati, Ohio) each collected nine kills. As a team, Penn State attacked at a .398 clip while holding Long Beach State to hitting .237, including .077 in the third game alone.
Senior setter Dan O??Dell (Rochester, N.Y.) dished out a season-high 60 assists and added four digs as Proper and Anderson led all players with seven digs each, a career high for Anderson. Wentzel and junior libero Aaron Smith (Richmond, Va.) both added strong passing and four digs for the Lions.
Penn State outblocked Long Beach State 18.5 to 10.0, led by Anderson and Holt with nine apiece, a new career high for both players. Meerstein and O??Dell each produced five blocks, a season high for O??Dell, as Proper and Wentzel both chipped in three blocks.
The 49ers were led by Robert Tarr with 25 kills on .409 hitting as Duncan Budinger added 10 kills. Tyler Hildebrand dished out 54 assists as Budinger paced the team with five blocks.
The Nittany Lions take to the road for the Volleyball Hall of Fame Classic in Springfield, Mass. Penn State will face No. 8 Ohio State on Friday, Feb. 10 at 5:00 p.m. before squaring off with Stanford on Saturday, Feb. 11 at 5:00 p.m. The Nittany Lions return home to host Rutgers-Newark on Friday, Feb. 24 at 7:00 p.m. at Rec Hall.
For more information on the Penn State men??s volleyball team, please visit www.GoPSUsports.com.
Quotes:
Head Coach Mark Pavlik:
??Before the fourth game I told the team to take a look around. The crowd was on its feet and cheering them on. That??s what this is about: having fun. I wanted to make sure that the players knew that we needed to take this, not wait for Long Beach to give it to us. This was a great match against a well-coached team. But no one wins a National Championship in February.
??Aaron Smith is the unsung MVP of this match tonight. He struggled last night [against Juniata] but he got right back on the horse tonight and got it done.??
Senior Nate Meerstein:
??We finally got the monkey off our back with this win. We had a great week of practice and now we finally know we can play at this level. We still have strides to take and we know we can improve. We have to come in every week and practice like we did this week. We needed this win.??
Senior Matt Proper:
??It??s fun playing at this level. We??ve been close and we??re getting closer. Tonight things started rolling and it was a lot of fun. Having such a great crowd and feeding off of them really helped us tonight.??