Box score

NEWARK, NJ—Greg Herceg notched 20 kills to lead visiting Ball State in a hard-fought 3-1 win over NJIT in non-conference men's volleyball Friday night in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher.
 
Ball State, with one of the richest histories in men's volleyball, raised its early season record to 2-0. The Cardinals, who compete in the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association, are celebrating their 50th anniversary as a program this year and they are one of two programs in NCAA Division I/II to eclipse 1,000 all-time wins. NJIT, meanwhile, falls to 0-2 with Friday's loss.
 
It is not hard to imagine a different outcome, however, as Ball State needed extra points to win each of the first two sets. In an opening set that saw 18 ties and 10 lead changes, the Cardinals prevailed, 29-27. There were fewer ties (10) and lead changes (7) in the second set, but they all came from the 17th point on in a set Ball State finally won, 28-26. NJIT stayed alive with a solid 25-20 win in the third set, but Ball State cruised in the clinching set, 25-16.
 
In addition to the 20 kills from the powerful senior left-hander Herceg, Ball State picked up 11 kills from Kevin Owens. Setter Graham McIlvaine dished out 51 assists and he also put down four kills when he saw holes in the NJIT floor defense. Herceg also had two of his team's four service aces.
 
On defense, Tommy Rouse had a match-best 15 digs, followed by Urim Demirovski (12 digs) and McIlvaine (10). The bigger Cardinals enjoyed a 14-10 advantage in team blocking, topped by six blocks apiece from 6-foot-9 Kevin Owens (1 solo, 5 assisted) and 6-foot-7 Matt Leske (2 solo, 4 assisted), with McIlvaine, the 6-foot-6 setter, adding four blocks (2 solo, 2 assisted).
 
NJIT, which looked much sharper against Ball State than in the season-opening loss against Grand Canyon, had one double-figure attacker, as Kajetan Borecki finished with 13 kills. Doug Battersby added eight kills for the Highlanders.
 
Sophomore Zak Robben, starting at setter, topped NJIT with 25 assists, while four different players posted one service ace each, as the teams were 4-4 in aces.
 
Brady Smith was the only Highlander with double-figure digs (11), but Herman Kantushov, Chris Kaepernick, and Robben all had eight digs each.
 
Battersby, who was strong in the middle, produced a match-best seven blocks (2 solo, 5 assisted), followed by four blocks (all assisted) from Kaepernick.
 
Ball State began the first set with leads of 6-2 and 7-3, as Herceg produced a block assist, three kills and a service ace in the opening run.
 
NJIT inched back into contention and pulled ahead, 13-12, on an ace for Kaepernick. Neither team led by more than a point from an 11-9 Ball State lead until the final 29-27. A block solo for McIlvaine snapped the 18th tie of the set, making it 28-27, Cardinals, and Herceg, appropriately clinched on his 11th kill of the opening set.
 
The Highlanders took control early in the second set, jumping out 5-1 and doubling the visitors at 12-6 and 14-7. NJIT still had a 16-10 lead after a block solo for Battersby, but Ball State used a 7-1 spurt to even the score at 17-17. From that point until the end, neither team led by more than a point until the visitors broke a 26-26 tie on an NJIT hitting error and a closeout kill from Herceg, who had six kills in the second set, running his two-set total to 17.
 
NJIT scored the first four points of the third set, but Ball State came back and took a brief 10-9 lead on a Leske kill. There were subsequent ties at 10-10 and 11-11, before the Highlanders took control with a 7-2 run that made the score 18-13. The NJIT lead was at least four the rest of the way and Battersby who, along with Borecki, had three kills in the set, plus two block assists each, closed out the 25-20 win with a kill.
 
Considering the back-and-forth intensity of the first two sets and the solid showing for NJIT in the third set to avoid elimination, the fourth and deciding set was anticlimactic. Ball State dominated from start to finish, grabbing the early 5-1 lead and then coasting to a 25-16 win. The Cardinals had a 4-1 blocking lead in the fourth set, a major factor in NJIT's negative attack percentage (-.209; 8 kills, 9 errors, 25 attempts) a set after the Highlanders' best hitting frame in the third (.304; 10 kills, 3 errors, 23 attempts).
 
NJIT faces another strong MIVA program, IPFW, on Saturday at 7 pm in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.