Penn State men’s volleyball’s losing streak has grown to six matches after falling to No. 3 UCLA and No. 6 USC in the Big Ten Challenge last weekend.

The Nittany Lions are still off to one of the worst starts in program history. It could’ve been worse, as the Nittany Lions missed out on two matches against then-No. 13 Ohio State after they were canceled due to an illness within the Buckeyes’ program.

Despite the losing streak, the team is still ranked No. 17 in the AVCA coaches poll after facing six straight top-15 opponents. Penn State still has to face six more teams currently ranked this season. However, with EIVA play beginning this weekend, the Nittany Lions are remaining patient with its young and inexperienced roster.

“We look at it as we’ve gained experience from playing these really good players, and we all have seen that we’ve been improving throughout each game,” redshirt junior libero Ryan Merk said Tuesday. “From our first game to this last game, we’re a lot better than what we started, so the attitude is yes, we’ve lost, but we know we’re growing, so we’re motivated.”

Head coach Mark Pavlik said he welcomes the early season challenge because he’d rather his team’s weakness be exposed now than in April in the thick of conference play. One of the biggest weaknesses Pavlik has identified is inconsistent execution.

“We have also been taken to task by the opponent when we don’t execute well enough,” Pavlik said. “I’m not saying that we execute poorly, but all of a sudden that ball instead of being hit off the edge of a block is off the middle part of the block. It slows it down, they get to run it back at us, and they’re physical enough to make us pay for it.”

One of the biggest reasons for the inconsistency early on is passing. However, it has improved since the first couple of matches of the season.

Penn State’s setter Michael Schwob didn’t have more than 30 assists in a match until the USC loss where he had 43. As a result, the Nittany Lions had a season-high 52 kills and a .330 hitting percentage.

“I think the first three matches — Lewis, Loyola Chicago, and UCLA — our passing struggled,” Pavlik said. “And then guys got their feet on the ground, and the passing picked up against Stanford and certainly this past weekend, we were pretty good with passing.”

Schwob is now in his second season with the program. As a true freshman in 2024, he played in 22 matches and started 18 alongside senior setter Luke Snyder. Schwob flashed athletically and showed he could make an impact as not only a setter but as an all-around player.

The Annapolis, Maryland, native led the Nittany Lions in assists with 681, but he also posted 20 aces, 40 blocks, and 87 digs. This season though, he isn’t setting to the likes of Toby Ezeonu, John Kerr, Michael Valenzi, and Michal Kowal.

“I think the nuances of setting, Michael is really starting to grasp, and we’re spending more and more time on that now with him than we did at any point last year,” Pavlik said. “Last year was just ‘OK, here’s what we need you to be good at. You got Toby, you had John, when you need to, make easy sets to them.’ Now, he doesn’t have those monsters out there. He’s got some other guys that need him to do some things for them to be successful.”

Those new guys are Will Kuhns, Matthew Luoma, Sean Harvey, and Gage Gabriel. Kuhns and Luoma have been on the roster for several seasons, but it’s their first year consistently starting, whereas Harvey is a redshirt freshman and Gabriel is a true freshman.

Against USC, Gabriel recorded a career-high nine kills and hit .467 from his middle position. Merk said Gabriel’s performance was impressive for a freshman and Pavlik said he noticed significant growth in his performance.

“It looks like it’s starting to make sense to him. It looks like the game’s slowing down. He doesn’t have that deer in headlights look,” Pavlik said. “And his athletic ability is starting to shine especially in transition. Schwob did a really nice job this weekend of getting balls in transition where Gage was up and just on it quickly.”

Penn State will look to apply the tough lessons it learned this weekend. The Nittany Lions start conference play by heading to Harvard to face the Crimson on Friday and Saturday. It will also be Harvard’s first conference match as it sits at 2-4, the worst record the Nittany Lions have faced yet.

This weekend will prove if the Nittany Lions can turn things around or if it will fall lower in the record column to become the first team in program history to start 0-8.

“We’re ready to get out there and play, but just keep doing what we’re doing in practice,” Merk said. “Keep improving on the things we’re working on and for it to be an early EIVA conference game, we don’t really think about that. We’re just treating it as one match at a time and we’re going out there to get a win.”