Ohio State men’s volleyball handles Coker College in straight sets

Luke Swartz
Sat, 23 Jan 2016 05:35:13 +0000
Sports, Volleyball, Buckeyes, Matt Pohlman, Nicolas Szerszen, ohio state, osu, Pete Hanson

Ryan Genn (10) sends the ball over the net. Credit: Ed Momot / For The Lantern

The Ohio State University men’s volleyball team (5-2) defended its home floor in St. John Arena on Friday night, handling Coker College (3-1) in three straight sets.

After starting the season out slowly by losing two of their first three regular-season matches, the Buckeyes dominated the night (25-11, 25-15, 25-23) in convincing fashion. The Scarlet and Gray have now won their last 12 sets and four straight matches overall.

Sophomore outside hitter Nicolas Szerszen said after the match that he feels the team has shaken off the rust from the long winter break.

“After winter break it was tough to get back into a rhythm,” Szerszen said. “So, now we have two weeks (back) on and we’re getting better.”

Redshirt senior outside hitter Matt Pohlman had himself a career night, tallying five service aces. The achievement placed him in fifth all-time individually in the OSU record books for single-game aces.

OSU coach Pete Hanson said he was caught off guard by the high quality of his team’s serves throughout the night.

“The thing that was really surprising to me was how well we served the ball,” Hanson said. “We didn’t let them off the hook, and that’s easy to do when you’ve got things going and lose focus.”

Szerszen finished the game with 10 kills, while his teammate, senior outside hitter Christian Franceschi, finished with 11 kills. The Buckeyes also had an impressive defensive performance, racking up 10 blocks during the course of the evening.

Although the Buckeyes have been on a roll recently, Hanson said he feels that the team still has plenty of things to improve on.

“We’ve got to continue to fine-tune some things,” Hanson said. “Even though you’re winning you can always come back and say OK, we weren’t very good in this section, and we can work on these things..”

The Buckeyes’ Saturday match originally scheduled against Pfeiffer University was postponed because of Thursday travel concerns brought upon by inclement weather that the visiting team would have to travel through. The match is instead scheduled to be made up on Feb. 26 at 7 p.m. in St. John Arena.

The flaming-hot Buckeyes are next slated travel to take on the Quincy University Hawks (2-4) on Friday, followed by a match at Lindenwood University the following day. The upcoming road trip signals the start of the Midwest Intercollegiate Volleyball Association conference play portion of their schedule.