Aztecs Pull Rank(ing) on Ball State : College volleyball: No. 12 San Diego State’s victory over the No. 6-ranked team looked to be anything but an upset.

Call it an injustice. A men’s volleyball team made up of players from such places as Muncie, Ind.; Racine, Wis.; West Carrolton, Ohio; Fort Wayne, Ind.; Danvers, Ill., and Whitefish Bay, Wis. is ranked ahead of a team of players hailing from the volleyball mecca of Southern California.

But there it was in the preseason coaches’ poll: Ball State (of Indiana), No. 6; San Diego State, No. 12.

When the two teams met on the same court Friday during the ASICS Grand Prix volleyball tournament at San Diego State, however, Ball State couldn’t pull its rank.

The Aztecs “upset” Ball State, 15-12, 15-11, 17-15. Except no one really called it an upset.

“According to the rankings,” relented Ball State Coach Donald Shondell, “it would be considered an upset.”

But . . . “I don’t really consider it an upset,” said Jack Henn, SDSU coach, “because the preseason poll really isn’t based on much . . . some prognosticator and his Oujia board.”

This Oujia board obviously failed to take into account SDSU’s Greg Enersen, who only started as an outside hitter against the Cardinals because a teammate failed to live up to expectations in the tournament’s first game (a 15-4, 8-15, 15-4, 15-8 Aztec victory over Navy). All Enersen, a junior, did was lead the team in hitting with 23 kills.

But it wasn’t as much Enersen’s skills as his stature (6-3, 195, short for a hitter) that made an impression on Shondell.

“Oh, the little guy who jumps so high,” Shondell muttered. “It seems to me we should have been digging those balls. Every one of them seemed to hit us in the chest.”

Enersen said it was a matter of Ball State not blocking properly.

“I felt like the block was giving me a lot of the line,” he said. “I just stuck to the line since they were giving it to me and it worked.”

Enersen wasn’t only working the line, but going cross-court and at times cross-body, which many times had the blockers jumping in the wrong direction.

Others joined Enersen with strong games at the net. Mike Mattarocci, a 6-foot-8, 220-pound junior from Bonita Vista, had 21 kills. Douglas Potter had 17 and Sean Clark 11.

Perhaps more important, the Aztecs also played well on defense.

“They just out-digged us and out-blocked us,” Shondell said. Actually, the difference in blocks was only 16-13. But the Aztecs finished with 46 digs, Ball State 30.

With one “upset” tucked away, the Aztecs now look forward to another. And if they can best No. 3 Hawaii (in a match which begins tonight at 8), no one will hesitate to use the word.

“We’re going to have to play even better than we did tonight in order to beat them,” Enersen said. “I don’t think it’s impossible, but we’ll have to have a really great match.”

Earlier Friday, Hawaii routed Ball State, 15-8, 15-7, 15-6.

“I would say the the difference in scores of Hawaii-Ball State and those of Ball State-San Diego State are indicative of the difference between the teams,” Henn said. “Hawaii cruised past Ball State, and we struggled in every game.”

Another San Diego school ranked in the top 20, No. 20 UC San Diego, didn’t fair as well as SDSU. The Tritons first lost to No. 13 George Mason, 11-15, 15-13, 15-6, 15-13, and later fell to No. 4 Long Beach State, 15-6, 15-10, 15-8.

The Aztecs and Tritons are playing in separate pools of five teams each. The top three teams from each pool will advance into the championship bracket for play on Sunday.