Princeton University Athletics
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Men's Volleyball Visits No. 6 Penn State To Open Critical EIVA Weekend
March 30, 2007 | Men's Volleyball
The Princeton men's volleyball team returns from a 13-day break Friday night to take on the No. 6 Penn State Nittany Lions in State College, Pa. With three road matches remaining in its league schedule, the Tigers remain a top contender for one of the two double-byes in the upcoming EIVA playoffs, but they will need at least one victory this weekend to stay on pace.
The Tigers are currently 8-6 overall, 6-3 within Tait Division play, and have won four of their last five matches. Led by Mike Vincent, who would go on to earn EIVA Player of the Week honors, Princeton swept St. Francis and Juniata in its last home weekend to vault several teams and stand alone in second place. The Red Flash of St. Francis matched Princeton at 6-3 with a win over East Stroudsburg Thursday night, but Princeton would win a two-team tiebreaker between the squads based on their season sweep.
Behind Princeton and St. Francis are three teams vying for one of those top two spots, one of which Penn State has all but locked up with an 8-0 league mark. George Mason is 4-3 and has all five of its remaining Tait Division matches at home. Juniata, which nearly stunned Penn State this week in an eventual 3-2 loss, is 4-5 overall and will need to win and get a fair amount of help to get into the second spot. The same holds true for 2-5 East Stroudsburg, which will host Princeton Saturday night.
Beyond a top-two finish, each team is trying to at least maintain fourth place in the Tait standings. The fifth- and sixth-place teams will host prequarterfinal matches against the top two teams from the Hay Division, which are currently Springfield and NJIT. The third- and fourth-place teams will then host those two winners in quarterfinal matches on April 21. The semifinals will be held at the home of the top-seeded team on April 26, with the final coming the night of April 28.
Princeton begins its final push for a second-place finish at Penn State, which defeated the Tigers 3-0 in Dillon Gym earlier this season. The 18-time EIVA champion Nittany Lions have won 35 of their last 36 regular-season EIVA matches and every league title since 1998, when Princeton defeated them in the semifinals. That was also the last year that the Tigers won a single game at Penn State, a trend they hope to have two chances to end this season.
The Tigers overcame a slow start earlier this season to sweep East Stroudsburg 3-0 at home. After pulling out a 31-29 win in the opener, Princeton hit .355 and .467 in the final two games to close the match with 30-20 and 30-23 victories. Outsides Peter Eichler and Phillip Rosenberg combined for 27 kills and a .400 hitting percentage in the win.
Eichler leads Princeton with 4.04 kills per game, while both Vincent and Rosenberg are averaging more than 2.5 kills per game. Vincent is averaging more than one block per game, while Brandon Denham's 12.68 digs per game rank fifth in the EIVA.