Box Score
Defending-national-champion Ohio State University is probably in no hurry to see the Carthage College men's volleyball team again anytime soon. The Red Men (8-2, 0-0 Continental Volleyball Conference), ranked first in the Feb. 14 American Volleyball Coaches Association NCAA Division III poll, gave the Buckeyes (11-4) all they could handle on Sunday, Feb. 19 before losing, 3-1, at St. John Arena in Columbus, Ohio. Ohio State's winning set scores over Carthage were 18-25, 25-21, 25-18 and 25-16.
The loss to the Buckeyes, ranked eighth in the Feb. 13 AVCA NCAA Divisions I-II poll, snapped an eight-match Carthage winning streak. Ohio State won last years' NCAA Division I Men's Volleyball Championship.
Carthage opened up a three-point lead in the first set, 9-6. The Red Men extended their lead to five points, 17-12, then to six points, 21-15, and finally to seven, 23-16, en route to a seven-point decision, 25-18. After Carthage jumped out to a 4-0 lead in set two, Buckeyes coach Pete Hanson called a timeout, and Ohio State came back to take a 6-5 lead. The Red Men had a 13-10 lead, and still led by a point, 17-16, before Ohio State scored six unanswered points to go up by five, 22-17. The Red Men closed to within two, 23-21, but the Buckeyes prevailed, 25-21.
In the third set, Carthage was trailing by a point, 16-15, when Ohio State ran off five-straight points to take a 21-15 lead. The Red Men got no closer than five, 23-18, and lost by seven points, 25-18. In the fourth-and-final set, Ohio State took an early, 11-6 lead and extended it to eight points, 15-8. Carthage got the margin down to six points on two occasions, the last at 22-16, but the Buckeyes went on to win by nine, 25-16.
Randy Hansen (Sr., Oak Lawn, Ill.) led the Red Men with 16 kills and a .290 attack percentage, along with three block assists.
Pat Barry (So., Skokie, Ill./Wilmette-Loyola Academy) had eight kills.
Matt Yanz (Sr., Bolingbrook, Ill./Naperville-Central) collected seven kills and hit .284 with four block assist. Setter
Connor Wexter (So., New Lenox, Ill./Lincoln-Way Central) averaged 9.0 assists per set. Shawn Sangrey topped Ohio State with 20 kills and hit .279, while Mik Berzins had 10 kills.
"I was slightly surprised by the match," said Carthage coach
L.J. Marx. "Our guys played incredibly well, but Ohio State kind of woke up at the end, and emotionally, we got tired. Not physically tired, but beating Indiana-Purdue at Fort Wayne on Friday and then playing toe-to-toe with Ohio State, we might have just run out of mental energy. Ohio State was making a lot of unforced errors, early, and when we won the first set and took a 4-0 lead in the second, I was just hoping we could keep playing good volleyball. We played great, disciplined volleyball for three sets, but then it started to get away from us. It would have been a big win. On Friday, we played a more-disciplined game than Indiana-Purdue, and we forced them into mistakes. We never got outside of our system or our abilities, and it worked almost perfectly. When we play at that level, we can play with anyone, as proven by the Ohio State match."
"The upcoming conference competition will provide a different sort of challenge," continued Marx. "The teams we'll see from here on in aren't as big, and they'll bring a different style of play. We'll need to re-group and play a different kind of game for the next few weeks, because we're going to see some different looks."
Carthage returns to action on Tuesday, Feb. 28 by playing host to CVC-opponent the Milwaukee School of Engineering in a 7 p.m. match at Tarble Arena in Kenosha, Wis.
