Feb. 28, 2016
By Jack Milewski, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. ââ'¬" The sixth-ranked Nittany Lions made it 11 wins in a row after sweeping the weekend series against Charleston (W.V.) and George Mason in Rec Hall.
The EIVA-leading Nittany Lions (12, 6-0 EIVA) swept Charleston in three sets on Friday and dispatched George Mason in four sets on Saturday to claim their 11th and 12th wins of the season. Charleston, a newly-minted program was a match that head coach Mark Pavlik believed may be a let down for the team, however, Penn State started strong and finished stronger in the first match of the weekend.
"I thought this match could have been a let down for our guys," Pavlik said. "To their credit, everyone on the court competed and played well for us tonight."
Penn State uses the mentality of constant team improvement as is evident by the way that they quickly fix mistakes or issues during matches. For Friday's match, the theme was obviously to win, but more so to get better during the match and use it as a tool for improvement.
"I think we are always trying to improve when we go out there," said redshirt freshman libero Royce Clemens. "Everyone out on the court did a great job of keeping the energy at a high level and most importantly just doing their job point in and point out."
Chris Nugent led the Nittany Lions on the night with a team-high eight kills. However, there was a somewhat unexpected bright spot for Penn State as Matt McLaren poured in seven kills on a .500 hitting percentage.
"Matt did a great job," Pavlik said. "I think that this match was a great opportunity to get some guys playing time and to keep everyone fresh and Matt was certainly a guy who stepped up for us tonight. We know what he is capable of since we see it in practice, but it's always nice to get out on the court and produce."
In game two of the weekend, Penn State defeated George Mason in a matchup of the two preseason EIVA favorites. Penn State dropped the third set, but won sets one, two and four fairly handily to complete the solid weekend.
For the Nittany Lions on Saturday night, Nugent was the star of the match, terminating 16 swings at a clip of almost .400 to lead Penn State once again. However, it was the play of Spencer Sauter that really balanced the Nittany Lions on offense and led to the win.
"Any time that Spencer comes in it kind of helps everyone else relax," said Matt Seifert. "You know what you're going to get with him, some good ball control and just an overall solid demeanor and that was really helpful for us tonight."
The Nittany Lions have been labeled as grinders this season and as a team that doesn't give in easily. That mantra was on display against George Mason as Penn State didn't have its best match, but was able to grind things out and ultimately commit fewer errors than George Mason.
"I don't think we played our best tonight by any means," Pavlik said. "That's going to happen, but what great teams do is they find ways to win when that is the case. For us tonight we let Mason commit the errors and when we had chances we usually put them away. It wasn't anything flashy, we just battled very well tonight."
George Mason committed 22 service errors, effectively handing the Nittany Lions a set off of those points. For Penn State and Seifert, the mentality was to keep it clean and don't fall in to the trap of trying to do too much.
"We always try to keep our game clean," said Seifert. "We practice a lot of high pressure situations so we are ready for them when they come our way during the game, it was good to see us limit errors for most of the night."
Penn State has one more weekend series before spring break. The Nittany Lions will take on Cal State Northridge and No. 1 Long Beach State on March 4 and 5.