UNIVERSITY PARK – After a convincing sweep of Ohio State last week, Penn State will close out the regular season with seven consecutive EIVA matches. The Nittany Lions have already played every team in the conference once, winning five of those seven matches, but they still have some ground to make up as they are currently tied for third place with St. Francis, trailing Princeton and George Mason.
Mark Pavlik's squad will have its first opportunity to inch closer to the top of the standings Tuesday night against St. Francis. Penn State defeated the Red Flash in four sets Jan. 21, but the second time facing them and the rest of their EVIA opponents will present new challenges.
"With us it's about seeing where we're at and what our strengths are. We want to make sure we're doing what works for us while also finding out how to mitigate some of our opponents' strengths with where we know our players are right now," Pavlik said.
Pavlik added that preparation for the second match against each of Penn State's EIVA foes is different since every team is more familiar with what the other does well and with the different weaknesses each team can exploit.
One of the advantages Penn State has entering this second wave of EIVA matches is the fact that Pavlik has used several different lineup combinations throughout the season, which has given Penn State a lot of depth at multiple positions.
Injuries to right side hitter Cal Mende and setter Luke Braswell in the middle of the season allowed freshmen like Cal Fisher, Brett Wildman and Cole Bogner to accumulate plenty of early playing time to the point where now each of them can be relied on to contribute at a critical point in the season.
Canyon Tuman is another freshman that has made excellent strides as Penn State's second middle blocker behind Jason Donorovich.
"(The freshmen) have grown a lot," Donorovich said. "You can see they are just confident out there and making plays. They're not really second guessing themselves. They just want to play and touch the ball as much as they can, so I just think that they have a different sense of confidence and you can really tell."
Penn State has traditionally dominated the EIVA, winning 30 league titles since it was established back in 1977. However, the Nittany Lions are hungry to redeem themselves after losing to Harvard in the semifinals last season.
"I think we have come up short the last couple years and have not performed where we wanted to be," Donorovich said. "I think we want to embrace the underdog mentality because we didn't win last year. We won the year prior but the competition is much harder, so we just have to get back to where we used to be and we know we're capable of it."
Pavlik has echoed this belief that the EIVA competition level has improved over the last few years, and now the other teams have the ability to perennially challenge Penn State for the league title.
With this last tough stretch of matches to close out the regular season, Pavlik emphasized that his team must serve and pass well and score points efficiently in order for Penn State to climb back to the summit of the EIVA.
"We've got to keep our physicality with our serving and we've got to make sure we can pass physical serves, and we've got to make sure that our first swing on side out offense puts balls away," Pavlik said. "We don't want to extend rallies. If the ball is on our side of the net, let's take care of the ball and let's put it away and not give them a chance to score."
Donorovich and the Nittany Lions need to finish the regular season in the top four of the league to qualify for the EIVA Tournament, but the standard is once again to reclaim the tournament title and return to the NCAA Tournament.
"We just need to control what we can control," Donorovich said. "We know other teams in the league want to beat us down, but if we handle ourselves on our side of the net like we did against Ohio State, then we can take control of the EIVA again."