Jan. 13, 2017
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| John E. Worthen Arena | Muncie, IN | 656 |
MUNCIE, IN - The No. 14 men's volleyball team fell to Ball State 3-1 (19-25, 25-20, 17-25, 18-25) Friday night in the closing match of the Shondell Active Ankle Challenge Friday night at John E. Worthen Arena.
Chris Nugent led the Lions in kills racking up 17 on the night hitting at a .289 clip and adding seven digs defensively.
Kevin Gear hit a season high .455 recording six kills and a team high six blocks.
Luke Braswell and Royce Clemens each had 11 digs with Braswell pouring in 43 assist as well.
Penn State also tallied 10.0 team blocks, the second most this season.
Penn State (1-2) opened the match with a 19-25 first set loss behind seven team attack errors hitting .207 as a team while Ball State (4-1) committed only two errors and hit .385 for the set behind the arm of Matt Szews.
Set two saw the Nittany Lions jump out to a 6-2 lead behind kills from Chris Nugent, Calvin Mende and Kevin Gear paired with two Cardinals attack errors and a service error to open the set.
Ball State crawled back to tie it up at 17-17, 18-18 and 19-19 despite committing a game high eight attack errors in the second set. Penn State capped the set and evened the game at 1-1 heading into the break on a kill from Gear.
Out of the break it was all Ball State as the Cardinals led from beginning to end of the third set winning 25-17, before taking the fourth set ending the game on a 14-8 run.
Penn State will return to action tomorrow at 7 p.m. ET as they take on the Mastodons of IPFW in Fort Wayne, IN at Hilliard Gates Sports Center.
For more on Nittany Lion men's volleyball, log onto www.GoPSUsports.com or follow the team on Twitter @PennStateMVBall.
