COLUMBUS, Ohio – The No. 9 Penn State men's volleyball team took an early lead on No. 5 Long Beach State, but the Nittany Lions dropped straight sets after that in a 3-1 defeat (26-24, 24-26, 19-25, 19-25) at the Covelli Center on Ohio State's campus Friday evening.
Penn State (4-5) had three players reach double-digits in kills and three total players record double-doubles, but only managed to hit .200 (47-24-115) for the match as a team.
Long Beach State (6-1) found more of an offensive rhythm after dropping the first set, hitting .444 for the final three games.
HOW IT HAPPENED
The first two sets did not show the most efficient offensive volleyball ever played, but both sets were very tight throughout. The largest lead was four points for Penn State in the first set at 18-14, but Long Beach was able to close that gap and retake the lead 21-19.
Penn State persevered however, as the Nittany Lions stormed back to tie the score at 22-22 on a Sam Marsh kill. Long Beach had set point at 24-23, but the Penn State wouldn't let the game go the Beach's way.
Henrik Falck Lauten finished the three-point run to end the set with a service ace giving Penn State the 26-24 game one win.
Service aces were a common theme for Falck Lauten who finished with a personal best five total for the match. He had two more service aces in a row to put Penn State ahead 16-14 in the second game.
Long Beach managed to tie the score again and took the lead late again at 23-21 thanks to a three-point run. The Beach had two game point chances at 24-22 and 24-23 but another ace from Falck Lauten tied the game 24-24. The Beach ended up securing the set, however, to tie the match 1-1 by scoring the next two points.
The third set was all Long Beach early as it sped out to an 11-4 advantage in the frame. Penn State was able to creep its way back into contention in the set with a 6-1 scoring run to trail 18-15, but that was the closest the Nittany Lions got in the set as the Beach won by six.
Penn State fell behind early in the fourth game 10-6 and 14-10 a few points later but put together a furious rally, winning five of the next seven points to trail by just one, 15-14, and forced Long Beach to call a timeout.
The Beach's timeout came at the right time as they rattled off five of the next six points to regain a five-point lead. Penn State never pulled the margin to closer than four as Long Beach won its match-clinching game, 25-19.
GAME NOTES
- Brett Wildman led Penn State for the fourth-consecutive match with 15 kills at a .250 (15-7-32) rate. He has seven-straight matches of double-digit kills and has reached at least 10 kills in eight of nine matches this season.
- Calvin Mende set a new career high with 13 digs to go with 10 kills for his first career double-double.
- Henrik Falck Lauten started his first match since the season-opener at BYU Jan. 10 and posted his second career double-double with 10 kills and 11 digs to go with his new single-match high in service aces.
- Cole Bogner also recorded a double-double with a 40-assist, 10-dig effort. He also led Penn State with four total blocks.
- Sam Marsh joined Jason Donorovich in the middle for his second start of the season. For the night, the pair hit .375 (11-2-24), with six kills coming from Marsh, a personal-best.
NEXT UP
Penn State returns to the Covelli Center Saturday afternoon to face No. 3 UC Santa Barbara in another good nonconference matchup at 4:30.