Falcons Close Regular Season At Home This Weekend

Weekly Volleyball Notes Package (.pdf)

Bowling Green, Ohio - A month ago, the Bowling Green volleyball team looked like it would be making an early exit in the Mid-American Conference Tournament Nov. 17-20 but the Falcons have turned their season around by splitting MAC matches in each of the past four weekends and now head into the final two matches of the year with an opportunity to earn a home game for the first round of the conference tournament. The top four teams in the MAC will receive a bye through the first round and the teams ranked fifth through eighth will host the teams ranked ninth through 12th on Nov. 17. Bowling Green sits just one game out of eighth place following a dramatic win over Northern Illinois Saturday in which the Falcons battled back from two sets down to win their third consecutive five-set match.

HEAD-TO-HEAD
If Bowling Green is to earn a home game in the opening round of the MAC Tournament, the Falcons will need to avenge a pair of three set losses. Both Kent State and Ohio swept the Falcons earlier this year but that was during the worst stretch of the season for the Orange and Brown. In all, Bowling Green is 42-19 against Kent State with a 24-5 record in Anderson Arena. The Falcons have won four in a row over the Golden Flashes in The House That Roars since a 2003 loss. Against Ohio, Bowling Green is 41-23 all-time, including a mark of 16-8 in Anderson Arena. Last year, the Falcons won a marathon five-set match over the Bobcats at home.

THE OPPONENTS
Kent State snapped a five-match losing streak by sweeping Akron and Buffalo this past weekend and have just about sealed up a home game in the opening round of the MAC Tournament with a record of 13-15 overall and 6-8 in league play. Arjola Prenga is a handful for every Kent State opponent to handle and she ranks among the top 30 in the country with 4.29 kills per set. Kent State also has an extremely effective second fiddle with Liva Brivule posting 3.04 kills per set. As a team, the Golden Flashes also block extremely well, averaging 2.58 blocks per set. Head Coach Glen Conley is in his third season at the helm of Kent State after leading programs at Army, Houghton and Edinboro. He is 48-43 in his tenure with the Golden Flashes and this year's team has equaled the squad's win total from a year ago.

Ohio has been the standard-bearer for MAC schools in recent history. The Bobcats have lost just five MAC matches in the past four seasons and are once again at the top of the standings with records of 21-5 overall and 13-1 in conference play. With just one win this weekend, Ohio will lock up the No. 1 seed for the MAC Tournament. The Bobcats' play at the net has been extraordinary and they rank in the top 10 in the country with 2.87 blocks per set. Ellen Herman's 4.63 kills per set rank among the top 10 in the nation and Meghan Simons' 1.34 blocks per set are among the top 25. Head Coach Ryan Theis is in his second season with the Bobcats and has a combined mark of 45-13.

THE VICTORY MARCH
With 11 wins in 2009, head coach Denise Van De Walle has compiled a career record of 498-340 in 27 years at Bowling Green, needing just two more to reach milestone win No. 500. Despite an earlier losing streak, the Falcons have racked up an impressive 83-43 overall record since 2006 and have won 20 or more matches in each of the last three campaigns. Van De Walle is one of the 30 active winningest coaches in NCAA Division I and her 498 wins are the most in Mid-American Conference history.

THE COMEBACK
Bowling Green's dramatic win over Northern Illinois Saturday was one of the most improbably turn-arounds in program history with a script unlike any match Head Coach Denise Van De Walle could remember in her 27 years. BG lost the opening set and was then defeated 25-5 in the second set. The Falcons came back and dominated the final three sets to win the match. Since the NCAA adopted 25-point sets in 2007, Bowling Green had never won a match in which it lost a set worse than 25-13. The NCAA used 30-point rally scoring from 2001-07 and the Falcons only played two sets during that time frame in which the losing team did not reach double figures. In both of those matches, the team that won those lopsided sets (Bowling Green on both occasions) won the match. Prior to that time, the most comparable match may have come in 1999 when the Falcons lost the first two sets to Kent State (including 15-4 in the second) before rebounding to win in five.

QUEENS OF THE FIVE-SET MATCH
Bowling Green has won three five-set matches in the past four weeks and is now 4-2 in matches that go the distance this year. The Falcons beat Duquesne early in the year and then lost five-setters to Cleveland State and Akron. Since then, Bowling Green has beaten Eastern Michigan, Ball State and Northern Illinois in five sets and in two of those matches, the Falcons came back from two sets down. A year ago, Bowling Green was even better, going 9-1 in five-set matches and the Falcons were 5-1 in 2007. The Falcons have not had a losing record in five-set matches since 2004.

Bowling Green's Record In Five-Set Matches Since 2005
2009 4-2
2008 9-1
2007 5-1
2006 2-2
2005 2-2

DEFENDING THE HOUSE THAT ROARS
In 2007 and 2008, Bowling Green went 22-3 in Anderson Arena and the Falcons held opponents to just a .198 attack percentage in 12 matches a year ago. But Bowling Green is just 3-8 in "The House That Roars" in 2009 and has allowed opponents to hit .259. The Falcons have just two home matches remaining and will finish with a losing record in Anderson Arena for the first time since 2002.

THE NEMESIS DOES IT AGAIN
Just as Lex Luthor was Superman's nemesis, Shari Luther has been a nemesis to opponents this year. Even if they aren't related (OK, we realize the last names aren't even spelled the same and Lex Luthor is fictional), Luther is causing headaches for opponents the way Luthor and his cryptonite must have caused for Superman. She received her second MAC East Offensive Player of the Week after posting 29 kills and nine blocks in matches against Ball State and Toledo. She received her first Player of the Week award after being named Most Valuable Player at the Duquesne/Robert Morris Tournament, averaging 2.8 kills per set and a team-best .430 attack percentage on the weekend. She also had a team-high 13 blocks and served up three aces. On the year, she leads the MAC in attack percentage at .375 (ranking 25th in the country) and leads the team in kills, blocks, and points.

ACTION JACKSON
Senior Kaitlin Jackson has been a versatile player throughout her career with the Falcons. In 2009, she has become an even more dynamic piece of the BGSU puzzle, recording the first six double-doubles of her career. She picked up the first two at the Duquesne/Robert Morris Tournament and continued to produce in New Orleans, coming up one kill short of another double-double against Texas Tech. At the Ohio State Sports Imports Classic, she had 12 kills and 10 digs against Cleveland State for her third double-double of the season and then posted 10 kills and 15 digs against Akron. This past weekend, she totaled a combined 33 kills and 34 digs to rack up double-doubles in both matches against Eastern and Central Michigan. She ranks among the top four on the team in kills, aces, serve percentage, digs, blocks, and points.

WHO'S THAT KID?
Freshman setter Allison Kearney is one member of a highly touted class at Bowling Green. In her first collegiate weekend, she lived up to the billing. Kearney averaged 11.5 assists per set, led the team with nine aces and added 2.5 digs per set. She has been named to all-tournament teams at both the Duquesne/Robert Morris Invitational and the Best Western Falcon Plaza Invitational. On the year, she is averaging 10.27 assists per set (which ranks fourth in the MAC), ranks ninth in the league in aces at 0.30 per set and is third on the team at 2.40 digs per set. Earlier this year, she set a career high with 59 assists in a win over Eastern Michigan.

THE DOMEK SHOW
For Mid-American Conference opponents, it may seem like Corey Domek has been around forever. The senior left side hitter has received MAC postseason honors in each of her first three years with Falcons. She was named to the conference's all-freshman team in 2006 and has followed that up with back-to-back second team all-conference honors. She has climbed nine spots this year to fourth place in BGSU history with 1,359 career kills. She needs 40 more this year (two regular season matches plus the postseason) to post 300 kills in four consecutive seasons and would be the first player in program history to do that.

HITTING THE BOOKS
Bowling Green has always stressed academics and Falcon volleyball has been a model of that philosophy. The 2008 BGSU volleyball team received the AVCA Academic Team Award for the ninth consecutive season, compiling a cumulative grade point average of 3.30 or better. The Falcons have the second longest streak in all of NCAA Division I and has received the award 10 times overall.

FOLLOW THE FALCONS
Fans and media can keep up-to-date on the Bowling Green volleyball team at the official site of Bowling Green athletics, BGSUFalcons.com. Match recaps, previews, statistics, bios and much more can be found on the website.

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