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No. 11/9 Ball State didn’t make its home crowd wait long to celebrate a title.
Ball State finished with a .411 attack percentage as it swept Quincy 25-23, 25-17, 25-15 on Thursday in Muncie, Indiana, to clinch the MIVA regular season championship and home court advantage throughout the conference tournament.
This is the third consecutive year under head coach Donan Cruz that Ball State has won the MIVA regular season title and the No. 1 seed for the MIVA Tournament. It is also the first time the Cardinals have won three straight conference regular season titles since 1995-97.
Ball State (19-9, 12-3 MIVA) in the victory committed a conference season-low seven attack errors and had a combined three attackers in the final two games.
Outside attacker Tinaishe Ndavazocheva led the Cardinals with nine kills on a .615 attack percentage. In addition, Ndavazocheva with Ball State trailing Quincy 23-21 in the first game had a kill to jumpstart a 4-0 run and close out the game.
Ndavazocheva along with the offensive performance was one of three Ball State players with a match-high two aces. Ball State ended with seven aces and had one fewer aces than service errors against Quincy (5-18, 1-14 MIVA).
Quincy hit more than .350 in each of the first two games and finished the match with a .284 attack percentage.
Opposite Raje Alleyne led all players with 18 kills on a .433 attack percentage, including a game-high seven kills in the opening game. Outside attacker AJ Goedheer also had 11 kills and hit .474.
Quincy with this loss was eliminated from postseason contention, and Queens clinched the No. 8 seed for the upcoming MIVA Tournament. Ball State as the No. 1 seed will play host to Queens in the MIVA Tournament quarterfinals next weekend.
Ball State swept the two-match season series against the first-year MIVA program.