Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
BALL STATE
Volleyball Drops Heartbreaker To Ball State
September 22, 2000 | Volleyball
Sept. 22, 2000
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - Defending Mid-American Conference champion Ball State University got a scare, but held on for a five-game win over the Bowling Green State University volleyball team Friday night (Sept. 22). The two-hour, 32-minute match saw the Cardinal post a win by scores of 15-12, 15-8, 10-15, 11-15, 15-10 at Anderson Arena in the MAC opener for both teams.
Ball State, now 8-3 overall, scored the first five points of the match, but the Falcons came back to tie game one at 6-6 on a kill by freshman Nadia Bedricky. The Brown and Orange scored the next point, but the Cards reeled off the next three points to take the lead for good. BGSU got as close as a single point twice, at 12-11 and 13-12, but the visitors closed out the game.
In game two, Ball State shot out to a 10-1 lead before the Falcons rallied. BGSU scored seven consecutive points, with senior JoAnna Papageorgiou totalling two kills and two blocks in those seven points. The Cardinals, however, scored the last five points of that game.
Papageorgiou had the first triple-double of her Falcon career in the match, with 15 kills, 18 digs and 10 blocks.
Bedricky and fellow freshman Susie Norris led the Falcon offense in the third game, combining for 18 of BG's 28 kills. The Falcons took a 3-1 lead on back-to-back kills by Bedricky and a Norris kill. Then, with the score knotted at 3-3, Norris sandwiched a pair of kills around a Papageorgiou kill to give the Falcons the lead for good. Norris, who had a team-high 24 kills, had two more kills among BG's next three points. In game three alone, she had 12 kills and no errors in 16 attack attempts. Fittingly, her twelfth kill of the game gave the Falcons their fifteenth point of the game.
In game four, the Brown and Orange rallied from an 8-1 deficit. The Falcons scored 11 of the next 12 points, capped by another Norris kill, to take a 12-9 lead. Block assists by Papageorgiou and junior Natalie Becker clinched the game and set the stage for a fifth game.
The Falcons never got untracked in that fifth stanza, however. BSU took a 3-0 lead, and extended the margin to 8-2. BGSU scored the next three points to cut the lead in half, but the Falcons could get no closer.
The two freshmen combined for 44 kills in the match, as both Norris (24) and Bedricky (20) set a personal season best in that category. Papageorgiou and junior Caty Rommeck each had 15 kills in the contest.
Defensively, each of BGSU's six starters hit double digits in the digs department, led by Norris. The freshman had 23 for her first "20-20" match. Papageorgiou and Rommeck each had 18 digs, while Becker, Bedricky and junior Karen Tangeman had 16 apiece.
In addition to Papageorgiou's 10 blocks, Becker shattered her career best with eight. Her previous best had been two blocks. Bedricky, Rommeck and junior Amber Vorst all had four total blocks as the Falcons held a 16-13 advantage in that department.
Becker had a career-high 68 set assists in the contest.
For the Cardinals, Susie Meshberger had 24 kills, while Julie Zylka had 22 and Megan Hammons and Katie Butts 19 each. Emily Sallee, the 1999 MAC Player of the Year, had match highs of 26 digs and 84 assists.
The loss snapped a seven-match winning streak for the Falcons, who drop to 7-3 overall. BGSU has now lost 18 consecutive matches to the Cardinals.
Next up for the Falcons are the Akron Zips, the defending MAC East Division champions. The teams will do battle Saturday night (Sept. 23) in Anderson Arena, with first serve set for 7:00 p.m.
