Volleyball Season Comes To A Close In MAC Tournament

Tuesday, November 16

Ypsilanti, MI

7:00 p.m.

Bowling Green State University

Eastern Michigan (First Round)

November 16, 2010 | Volleyball

By: by Jason Knavel, Assistant Athletic Director for Athletic Communications

Boxscore

Ypsilanti, Mich. – The Bowling Green State University volleyball season came to a close in the first round of the Mid-American Conference Tournament Tuesday night with a 25-20, 25-15, 28-26 loss to Eastern Michigan. The Falcons entered the match as the No. 12 seed in the tournament and Eastern Michigan was the No. 5 seed.

For much of the year, Bowling Green has struggled with attack errors but the Falcons had one less than Eastern Michigan Tuesday night. The Eagles, however, had nine more kills, two more aces, three more digs, and an extra block to pull out the win.

The Falcons struggled early in each of the first two sets, falling behind 6-1 in the first and 13-3 in the second. Despite falling in relatively easy fashion in those two sets, Bowling Green bounced back to make the third set competitive.

A Paige Penrod kill gave the Falcons an early 5-3 lead but Eastern Michigan stormed back to take the lead before a four-run BGSU run gave the team an 11-9 lead. The set continued to teeter back-and-forth until the Eagles scored four straight late to build a 23-19 lead. Still trailing by four at 24-20, the Falcons made one last run.

A Lindsey Butterfield kill was followed by an Eastern Michigan attack error and a pair of Penrod kills to tie the frame at 24-24. The Eagles took a 25-24 lead but Penrod picked up another kill to tie it again. After a Rachel Iaquaniello kill gave Eastern Michigan a 26-25 lead, Penrod again came up with a kill to tie the score. But the Eagles got a kill and a block to finish the match.

Penrod led the way with 18 kills in the match and hit .308. Butterfield added 11 kills and a .500 attack percentage. With six kills, Danielle Tonyan became just the fifth freshman in program history to post 300 in a season, finishing with 301. Laura Avila handed out 34 assists and Ashley Dunn had 12 digs.

Eastern Michigan improves to 24-10 and will move on to the MAC Tournament quarterfinals. Bowling Green ends the year with a record of 8-24 and the loss concludes the careers of two Falcon seniors, Sam Fish and Noelle Spitler.