UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The No. 4 Penn State men's volleyball team continues its great run to start the season with a fourth-straight sweep of a ranked opponent after its 3-0 (25-18, 25-18, 25-13) sweep of No. 6 Grand Canyon Saturday evening at Rec Hall.
The Nittany Lions (4-0) were particularly good from the service line with 11 aces as a team while not allowing GCU (2-2) to ace a serve for the match.
Senior opposite hitter Cal Fisher and senior setter Cole Bogner combined for seven of those aces. Fisher also had a match-high 15 kills while hitting .565 (15-2-23). Bogner had 37 assists and led PSU to a .386 hitting percentage as a team.
Senior middle blocker Sam Marsh added 12 kills and senior outside hitter Brett Wildman also touched double digits with 10 kills.
HOW IT HAPPENED
The Nittany Lions immediately put the pressure on the Lopes to begin the match from the service line with aces from Cal Fisher and Michael Valenzi. GCU also had a couple of early hitting errors that gave Penn State a quick 6-1 lead and forced an early timeout from the Lopes.
Penn State's relentless attack was the story of the first set as they did not allow the Lopes to find any sort of rhythm. Penn State's five aces were accompanied by several more serves that GCU struggled to pass, but the Nittany Lions offense was a bit erratic with six hitting errors that allowed the Lopes to close the gap in the set.
The one player who did not have any hitting errors in the first set was Sam Marsh, who did not have an error Thursday night (7-0-7). He scored the last three points of the set for Penn State with a block, kill and ace to win the first set 25-18 and give Penn State the 1-0 lead in the match.
The second set started much closer with the Lopes managing a 12-11 lead to begin the set. After a Marsh kill to win the serve back, Wildman put down a kill after Bogner nicely covered a GCU block and Will Bantle picked up the assist to swing the score back to Penn State's favor at 13-12.
The back-and-forth battle continued until Fisher stepped the service line for PSU leading 19-18. The senior took over with a 6-0 scoring run on his serve to win the set for Penn State. He had two aces in the run and forced three overpasses by the Lopes that resulted in easy points for Penn State. The Nittany Lions closed the set with another 25-18 win to lead 2-0 in the match.
That momentum carried over into the third game for Penn State and the Nittany Lions dominated. Penn State closed the match with a .591 hitting percentage in the third set and four more service aces as a team. An 8-1 run in the middle of the frame for PSU sent the Nittany Lions off and running for a 25-13 third-set victory to complete Penn State's fourth sweep in a row to begin the season.
MIKE ANDERSON MAN OF THE MATCH
Sam Marsh had a career-best 12 kills with just one error on 16 swings for a .688 hitting percentage. In both games against Grand Canyon, Marsh had 19 kills on 23 swings, including putting down 12 kills on his first 12 swings of the weekend.
MATCH NOTES AND STATS
- Fisher's four service aces give him 105 for his career, still good for eighth most in Penn State history. He is quickly approaching Joe Sunder (107, 2009-12) and Matt Proper (108, 2003-06).
- Bogner also led the Nittany Lions with six digs in the match. He also aced three serves.
- Penn State's four-match win streak against ranked nonconference opponents is its longest since the 2015 season.
NEXT UP
The Nittany Lions head out to Los Angeles for the B1G/Pac12 Challenge hosted by UCLA. Penn State will play USC Friday, Jan. 21 and UCLA Saturday, Jan. 22.