In Short
The Loyola University Chicago men's volleyball team suffered their fourth straight loss tonight, falling to Penn State, 3-0 at Gentile Arena. The Ramblers move to 1-4 this season.

Coach Mark Hulse's Thoughts
"Penn State is real sharp," Hulse said. "We played them in the pre-season and they looked pretty good. They're big and bad at just about every position. They were big, they were physical. I didn't like our compete level, I thought the first set was tough. You feel like its yours and then it kind of felt like we spent the next roughly hour and 20 minutes just being sad that we lost the first set and that's a bummer. We played really well early and we got a bad break and the bad guys were better in the first. We're playing really good teams and that's not an excuse, that's just where we're at. We're really young and we'll find out where the bar is."

How It Happened
Loyola played an aggressive first set, hitting .282 percent. Kyle Piekarski made his return well-known, slamming down a kill to put the Ramblers up 5-3 early on. Loyola would hang on to their lead until the Nittany Lions went on a 3-0 run to take it back, 13-10. Both teams exchanged points until the Ramblers pulled ahead, 23-21 after kills from Piekarski and Devin Joslyn. After numerous rounds Penn State took the set, 33-31. Cole Schlothauer totaled a team-high six kills in the first set.

Continuing their momentum, Penn State went on a 5-0 run to kick off the second set. The Ramblers pulled it back within two, 8-6 after a kill from Schlothauer, and again, 10-8 on a quick slam from Danny Sutton Farrell. The Nittany Lions went on another 4-0 run to continue their lead, 15-9. Penn State held on to a comfortable lead, but Loyola made a come-back towards the end of the set, pushing it to 23-18 on a Schlothauer kill and then another big one from Luke Denton to make it 23-20. The Nittany Lions would go on to win set two, 25-20.

Penn State took an early lead in the third set, 3-0 before a Denton kill and ace made it 3-2. The Nittany Lions took a huge lead, 11-4 that the Ramblers struggled to come back from. Loyola only hit .048 percent in the third, compared to the Nittany Lions .455. Penn State won the third and final set, 25-16.

A Look At The Numbers
- Cole Schlothauer led the Ramblers with 11 kills.
- Luke Denton recorded 10 digs and eight kills.
- Kyle Piekarski made his first start of his senior season tonight after suffering an injury. The middle blocker tallied one solo block, which marks the 100th of his career. 


Up Next
Loyola hosts No. 1 Hawaii tomorrow night at 7 p.m. at Gentile Arena.