UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Penn State head coach Mark Pavlik spoke at Winter Sports Media Day Tuesday afternoon at Pegula Ice Arena for about 15 minutes to preview the upcoming season.
The Nittany Lions spent this past weekend in Provo, Utah playing a pair of matches against No. 3 BYU. Despite being swept in both matches, both contests were much closer than they appeared with Penn State scoring more than 21 points in four of the six sets played.
"I thought that the way we performed against BYU was better than anticipated," Pavlik said. "We've got some experienced youth that will take the lead with our group. We've got a group of seven guys that have been around for at least four years. It'll be interesting to see if we can keep them healthy this year and see what kind of damage we can do.
Here are five takeaways from Pavlik's press conference:
The EIVA Continues to Get Tougher
From 1991 to 2015, no team other than Penn State won the EIVA title, but over the last five years the conference has become much more competitive. Penn State's streak of 17 straight EIVA championships was snapped in 2016 and since then, Penn State has claimed only one league title in the last four seasons.
"We're seeing a commitment from those institutions with full-time head coaches. We're seeing a commitment from those institutions with enabling those coaches to go out and recruit," Pavlik said. "Boys volleyball is the fastest growing high school sport in the country right now, so there are a ton of kids out there that can play the game, and I think the EIVA is identifying them and recruiting them to their campuses."
Penn State will have some tough sledding ahead to get back to the top this season as the EIVA coaches picked Princeton, the defending league champion, as the preseason favorite this year.
Elsewhere around the league, both George Mason and NJIT swept No. 12 USC over the weekend, while St. Francis pulled off a massive shocker against No. 7 Stanford.
Pavlik added that these types of outcomes were probably coming sooner rather than later with a more national schedule being encouraged during nonconference play as a result of the increased volleyball talent all over the country.
If the first weekend was any indication, the rest of the EIVA is only continuing to get better, and it is becoming a conference that is beginning to achieve national prominence rather than just competing against Penn State.
Everyone Back at Full Health
Last year Penn State had 18 of their 20 travel roster players miss at least one weekend of competitive matches.
"It was quite a struggle to try to get any consistency going," Pavlik said. "So far – knock on wood – we've been able to take the guys that we thought we could count on last year and get them into the lineup."
Most notably of those injuries included libero Will Bantle, who played 24 matches until a season-ending injury and right-side hitter Calvin Mende, who played in only 18 matches last year. (More on both below)
Pavlik said his team's biggest early season question mark is load management in terms of making sure every key contributor is at his best when the postseason arrives.
No Signs of Post-Injury Rust from Bantle or Mende
Pavlik not only said that there have been no signs of rust from either Bantle or Mende, but in fact each of them are playing maybe their best volleyball he has seen.
Penn State's passing over the weekend against BYU was much better than Pavlik expected, in large part because of Bantle. When he watched BYU on film before those two matches, he just hoped that his team could handle the physicality of the Cougars' serving and stay mostly in system, but he did not expect for his team's passing to be as consistent as it was this early in the season.
"This past weekend (Bantle) had one of the best weekends I've seen him have in his career," Pavlik said. "If he plays like that, if that's his baseline, it's going to make our offense so much better as the year rolls along."
Pavlik raved about Mende, on the other hand, for his dominance during fall practice. Pavlik's biggest focus for the 6-foot-11 lefty will be to get his arm back in shape for the long run.
"The opposite position is a point scoring position. It's not somebody who's out there to keep the ball in play," Pavlik said. "It's somebody out there who's going to terminate with third contacts and we expect Cal to block balls and make things tough on the opponent's left side attacker, and we expect him to score some points with his serving. He did all of that this fall at a level we haven't seen him do before."
In the 2017 season, Mende was a First-Team All-EIVA selection and an honorable mention All-American, but in the two seasons since then he has not consistently stayed healthy. If he can do that this year, he has the potential to exceed his 2017 accomplishments.
Bogner Taking Over at Setter
The past three seasons redshirt senior Luke Braswell has taken most of the reps at setter, but Cole Bogner started Penn State's final 10 games of the season last year. Bogner also was the primary setter in the Nittany Lions two games against BYU last weekend, and it appears Pavlik will keep him there going forward.
The biggest reason for going with Bogner is his superior mobility, which is crucial at the setter position in collegiate men's volleyball because of how physical the serving is at this level.
"You've got to have mobility at the setter position and you've got to have mobility at some of the other positions," Pavlik said. "That's Cole's strength. Cole moves as well as anybody we've ever had at that position."
Bogner reminds Pavlik a lot of former Penn State setter Luke Murray, who could track the ball down no matter where the pass was and still maintain excellent body control.
Pavlik mentioned that how to get Braswell involved is one of his other big question marks early on, but for now it appears Bogner is running the offense from this point forward.
