"Obviously, a little bummed about that loss but for our path and our journey this season, to be able to fight the defending champions the way we did, in five, I thought we had some good plays there," head coach Donan Cruz said. "They just made a few more than we did. As we think about the growth and the year, to be able to get this point, simply what we spoke about in that last huddle was, 'There's really nothing to hang our heads on.' Although this stings at this moment, as a group, moving forward, these are the things that really get us to that championship mindset.
"We talk about it a lot. Part of playing the game is you can win and you can lose. Tonight, you saw two really great teams go after it. And that's the defending champion. I thought we represented Ball State in the best way possible and played consistently at a very high level throughout the year, and we don't get to this point without doing that."
Battling the top-ranked Rainbow Warriors (26-5) for a third time this season, the championship's second-seeded Cardinals (23-4) fell just shy of the program's first-ever berth into the national championship match.
After winning the first two meetings between the programs, both of which were played in Worthen Arena in late January, Ball State found itself down 12-5 early in the opening set. The Cardinals would battle back, however, tying the score at 24 before reaching set point on a service ace from Nick Martinski.
Hawai'i was able to escape with the set victory, however, which proved crucial in the match. Ball State would go on to take sets two and three, only to see the Rainbow Warriors win the final two frames to continue its bid for back-to-back national championships.
Kaleb Jenness led the Cardinals with 18 kills in the match, while Angelos Mandilaris was right behind with 15. Overall, Quinn Isaacson guided the Ball State attack to a .262 rate of success, dishing out 40 assists to go along with a pair of kills of his own.
The Cardinals defense also held a decisive advantage at the net, tallying 19 total blocks to 10 from Hawai'i. Felix Egharevba led the way with nine total blocks, while Mandilaris and Vanis Buckholz added seven apiece.
"Proud of our team, proud of our fanbase," Cruz added. "There's not anything more we could ask, other than we're going to move forward and grow from this moment. Obviously, Quinn and a few of our other guys are moving on to other things. We told them how proud we are of how they represented this university and this team, and know that they're going to do great things."
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May 06, 2022 at 01:19PM
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Despite valiant effort, Ball State falls to Hawai'i in five-set thriller - BallStateSports.com
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