Ball State Sports Link, in partnership with Ball State Athletics, opens its Spring Semester 2025 broadcast schedule tonight (Jan. 16) with a Top 10 men’s volleyball contest between No. 5 Brigham Young and No. 6 Ball State.
The TableX PreMatch Studio show opens the coverage at 6:45 p.m. with AJ Swiatek and Zander Woods live from Studio A on Ball State’s campus, leading into the broadcast at 7 p.m. with Dom Liacone, Jordan Klimes and Brayden Carroll on the call.
Ball State head coach Donan Cruz and outside Patrick Rogers will join the PreMatch report live, along with BYU Head Coach Shawn Olmstead.
The TableX team, under the direction of founder and owner Jim Skillman, crafted a new custom studio anchor desk for the students in Sports Link. The studio show is produced by Maddy Howell and directed by Daniel Sullivan, while the broadcasts are produced Rachel Henderson with Brian Short directing.
Ball State, the repeating three-time regular season MIVA Champions, has been picked to win the conference in the preseason poll. The Cardinals also have three players named to the preseason All-MIVA team including Rajé Alleyne, Tinaishe Ndavazocheva and Patrick Rogers.
Sports Link’s coverage of men’s volleyball is the most comprehensive of any men’s program in the nation, with multiple E+ match broadcasts, feature stories and unprecedented season-long access with the follow documentary, Setting The Standard.
I just spent the last two evenings watching BYU volleyball pull out five-set wins over Ball State. As a three-time BYU grad I was, of course, happy with the outcome. I want to compliment your media team on the impartial, objective approach to your calls on both matches. You no doubt privately pull for your Cardinals, but both announcers were outstanding in reporting fairly on both teams. But here’s a little heads up that might help you be perceived as better informed than the majority of media types who note that BYU “travels” well. Most seem to believe that fans migrate from Provo, Utah to watch a volleyball match in Muncie, a basketball game in Houston, or a football game in Ames. This is not the case. The vast majority of the BYU fans in Worthen Arena the last two nights would have traveled from Muncie and other nearby communities to get a chance to cheer on their Cougars. This is due to the widespread dispersion of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, BYU’s sponsoring institution. This is a friendly heads up to let you know that when BYU fans show up to support teams across this nation, in whatever sport and in whatever state and city, most of them by far are local to the community. We sometimes privately snicker at the notion that BYU “travels” well. Where some surely do travel from Utah, most of BYU’s fans come from right in your own friendly neighborhood.