Bowling Green State University
Kent State
Volleyball Advances to Quarterfinals After Sweep
November 15, 2005 | Volleyball
"To hit a .424 tonight was pretty impressive. All our hitters were on. When your lowest hitting efficiency is a .304 that's unbelievable," said Head Coach Denise Van De Walle, "Both Chrissy (Gothke) and Annie (Griffin) did an awesome job of mixing up the sets and staying with what worked. Again, Kendra (Halm) and (Stephanie) Swiger were hard to stop in the middle. And Noffy (Nofzinger) went without a hitting error. What a great night at the net."
Bowling Green's two seniors knew this could be their last match, but they made sure it wasn't. Seniors Ashlei Nofzinger (6-0-6) and Emily Manser (5-0-7) recorded 11 kills on just 13 swings with no errors to take a game-one win, 30-22. In fact, the only hitting error for the entire team in game one came on a questionable "no touch" call. The Brown and Orange picked up more kills (23) then Kent State points while hitting .629 to begin their MAC tournament run.
"Our players came in ready to fight for this one. We knew Kent would be fired up and would play harder than last Friday night. There was a lot on the line for both teams," said Van De Walle.
Manser began game number two with a kill and the Falcons did not relinquish lead the rest of the game. However, the Golden Flashes knotted the score at 17-17 after a Falcon attack error. Junior captain Chrissy Gothke then simply took over, belting a kill for the side-out before preceding to serve the next ten points to give the Brown and Orange a 27-17 advantage.
"We were really aggressive in all aspects of our game," said Van De Walle, "We're happy that whenever Kent pushed on us we seemed to answer back right away with either a great dig or big swing."
Bowling Green's middle hitters stepped it up as well in the 30-19 game-two win. Sophomore Stephanie Swiger added to her errorless game one with three more kills without an error, and redshirt freshman Kendra Halm blasted five kills of her own in the stomping.
Nofinger and Swiger compiled five points apiece as the Falcons never trailed in game three. Halm continued her hot play with six more kills to give her a match-high 14 terminations for the match. The Bowling Green defense stiffened up in game three as well with three team blocks and 21 digs in the 30-19 win that punched their ticket the MAC tournament quarterfinals.
"I feel that Mark (Hardaway) and Sean (Huiet) did another great job scouting Kent and helping to devise the game plan," said Van De Walle. "Tonight was a total team and staff effort. I loved it."
With the win, the Falcons have earned the right to play second-seeded Eastern Michigan Friday morning at 11 a.m. The quarterfinal match will take place in the Seagate Centre located in Toledo, Ohio.
"We wanted to be at the SeaGate Center so bad. It's another goal that we've accomplished with this team. We still have a couple more to get...but this was a big one," said Van De Walle.
"We want to thank the crowd for all their cheering and yelling tonight. It was great!" said Van De Walle.
