Ball State men’s volleyball wins, headed now to the Final Four

Ball State’s 7^th-ranked men’s volleyball Cardinals beat the Pepperdine Waves 3 to 2 Saturday night to advance to the NCAA Final Four in Los Angeles. The five set scores were 25-23, 23-25, 25-22, 19-25, and 16-14.

The Cards trailed 14-to-12 in the fifth set in front of 1,252 fans at Noblesville’s Riverview Health Arena before roaring back to claim victory courtesy of a Pepperdine service error and then stellar serving by Ball State’s Patrick Rogers.

Ball State faces UC-Irvine in the semi-finals at UCLA’s Pauley Pavillion next Saturday at 6:30 p.m. ET on ESPN+.  This is Ball State’s 17th appearance in the final four in program history.

In the other semi-final match, 2^nd-seeded Hawaii takes on 3^rd-seeded Long Beach State, Saturday at 9:30 p.m. ET.

The national championship game will feature the winners of each match on Monday, May ¹¹ at 7 p.m. on ESPN-2.

Stan Sollars is IPR’s Morning Edition host and a senior lecturer in Ball State’s Department of Media.  He can be contacted at stansollars@bsu.edu.