Princeton swept by EIVA foes

“We’ve never been a good road team,” junior outside hitter Ka’ohu Berg-Hee said. “It’s always hard to go into a hostile environment on the road after traveling for four or five hours and play well.”

The St. Francis Red Flash blinded the Tigers with its offense Friday night, reeling off wins in consecutive games to start the contest. The four leading attackers for St. Francis combined for 60 kills, equal to what the entire Tiger offense put up. After dropping the first two games, 25-30 and 23-30, the Tigers took the third game 30-27 before losing the match in the fourth game.

The Tigers managed a .221 attack percentage for the match. The lone bright spot may have been the Princeton defense, which accumulated 41 digs and seven blocks in the four games.

Princeton fared even worse against Penn State the next day. The Nittany Lions ceded only 19 points to the Tigers in the first game and 16 in the second. The Tigers clawed their way back into the third game and kept even with Penn State before eventually falling, 33-31.

“It’s always just a blast to play against a great team like Penn State and in front of so many fans,” sophomore outside hitter Carl Hamming said. “We just didn’t play as well as we could have.”

Despite being swept, Princeton managed some impressive individual statistics. Senior outside hitter Peter Eichler had a match-high 15 kills. Sophomore middle blocker Jeff McCown produced a stunningly efficient .909 attack percentage, converting 10 kills on 11 attempts. Junior setter Brandon Denham also racked up 33 assists in the contest. Canceling those statistics, however, were those of the five Tigers who had negative attack percentages.

“Penn State doesn’t make many mistakes, and most of the teams that play them tend to beat themselves,” Berg-Hee said. “I think that we sided-out fairly well with them early on, but it’s hard to play at that level for 30 points. They were just much more consistent than us.”

The Tiger defense that showed some promise in the losing effort to St. Francis took a beating against the Nittany Lions, who performed with skill and execution indicative of their undefeated record and lofty national ranking.

In the first two games, the Tigers accumulated measly attack percentages of .036 and .038, stymied by a strong Penn State defense that racked up 14 blocks. The Tigers were once again plagued by serving troubles, totaling nine service errors and no aces in the match.

“Certainly serving and passing are always key, and we’ll just have to keep on improving in those areas,” Hamming said.

Nerves and fan pressure could have been a factor in Princeton’s lackluster performance. The Tigers have only faced one other ranked team this season, a 3-1 loss to No. 15 UC San Diego nearly a month ago. The Penn State match also featured an attendance of 1,583, by far the largest crowd the Tigers have played for this season.

“Penn State’s just a really good team, and we’re not at a place in our season right now where we can compete at that level,” Berg-Hee said.

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Both St. Francis and Penn State have good volleyball programs, as Penn State claimed the EIVA Championship last season by defeating St. Francis in the finals.

“There’s always things to tweak, adjustments to be made,” Hamming said. “Next time when they come visit us, we might try something different, maybe block a little better, focus more on the two players that they try to set up and just attack whatever weak links we can find in their lineup.”

Princeton’s next seven matches will all be held at home. The Tigers will look to regroup after their losing skid and prepare for March 8, when Penn State visits Dillon Gym.