Always glad to see a victory against Lewis. Solid comeback in the fifth set for the victory.

Is Ohio State as good as they seemed against us last week, or are we finally starting to get it together with a new coach and new player leadership?

JCT, I think it's a little bit of both. Ohio State brought back a lot of their key guys, and added some good talent to compliment that. They cracked the top 5 in the AVCA poll. At the same time, I think things are looking better for our guys. Although there is still plenty of room for growth, I think they are understanding the system better, and getting used to not having Jaeschke and Caldwell more.

There is a steep learning curve this year compared to last year. Last year, all we had to do was replace Smalzer. It took a while. Plaisted did fine before he was hurt, but was clearly not up to the level of Smalzer. Gevis wasn't better overall but was very streaky on offense and had a bigger block.

This year, they knew they had to replace Caldwell, a rock solid player all-around and calming influence on the team. Then Jaeschke leaves. He had a few accolades here and there. Okay, so we have to replace our two best all-around players and two thirds of our serve receive. Loyola was bread and butter the last two years on serve receive and offense with Caldwell and Jaeschke aiding the defense and offense. It's that good serve receive that boosted the middle offense with Olson and Jendryk.

Oh and Shane Davis leaves. Philosophically, not much changes here as the rest of the staff had been there the last several years with Hulse, Berzins, and Wilson. However, it is still a big blow when your head coach leaves the morning of first practice.

So it's a lot to adjust to. This became a young team experience-wise compared to Caldwell and Jaeschke and one without their leader. While 5 of the 7 starters are back, Loyola has had to figure out those two outside spots. Cole Murray, juco transfer, has played well between injuries stints. Freshman Colin Mahan has held his own when out there. Trevor Novotny had a slow start to the season but picked it up recently, before being in warm-ups the whole match last night. While it is too much to expect the level of play we're used to the last few years, these guys are holding their own and being competitive on the court. With injuries to Murray this year and possibly Novotny, I believe the main goal to to get healthy and stay healthy to make a strong push the last two months of the season going into the conference tournament. We're already behind the 8 ball with losses to Ohio State and Ball State. I think it's fair to say that Loyola has to win the conference to get back to the National Tournament. An at-large is not in the picture at this point. That being said, last night's win at Lewis was huge. It's a road victory in conference that keeps them in 3rd place.

Oh and nice game from Ricky Gevis with a couple dozen kills. The serve receive looked pretty decent last night from where I was sitting. Loyola was able to run very efficient middle attacks with Olson and Jendryk into Lewis' strongest part of the lineup, the middles. Also noteworthy is that Loyola is 3-0 in 5 set matches this season.