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Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
14-13, 10-5
Akron
8-18, 2-13
Falcons Take Over Late To Beat Akron
November 16, 2013 | Volleyball
Akron, Ohio – The Bowling Green volleyball team overcame a slow start to defeat Akron Friday night in the first match of the final weekend of Mid-American Conference regular season play. The Falcons defeated the Zips 24-26, 25-23, 25-17, 25-20 to move into sole possession of fourth place in the MAC standings with one match remaining.
Bowling Green has already clinched a bid for the eight-team MAC Tournament next week, but the Falcons are playing for one of the top seeds, entering the weekend in a three-way tie for fourth. However, both Northern Illinois and Western Michigan lost Friday evening as the Falcons moved a game in front of both of those teams. With a win over Buffalo Saturday, BGSU would finish no lower than the No. 4 seed and could earn the No. 3 seed if the win is coupled with a Ball State loss at Western Michigan.
In Friday's win, Bowling Green hit just .111 in the first set and Akron took advantage to post a 26-24 victory. The Falcons, however, hit .312 the rest of the way to sweep three consecutive sets for the win. In fact, BGSU hit .457 in the second without a single attack error to take momentum away from the Zips.
In that second set, Danielle Tonyan had seven kills on 11 swings, beginning with one on the first point of the frame. The set teetered back-and-forth until Akron took a 20-17 lead but the Falcons answered with three consecutive points to tie the score. With the set tied at 22-22, Tonyan posted her fifth kill of the set and she added her sixth on the next point. After an Akron timeout and a Zips kill, Tonyan closed out the set with another kill for the 25-23 win to even the match.
From there, Bowling Green dominated. The Falcons held Akron to just .184 hitting in the third set and .103 in the fourth and BGSU outdug the Zips by eight over those final two sets. In the third, the Falcons used an 8-3 run to close out the frame and in the fourth, the team scored the final four points to pull away.
Tonyan posted her second 20-kill match of the year, finishing with exactly that total to lead all attackers on the night. She also had just five errors and hit .366 for the match. Jelena Sunjic added 11 kills, but Paige Penrod had nine with just one error and Kaitlyn Skinner followed with seven and just one error as BGSU hit .253 on the evening.
The Falcons also outdug Akron 69-65 behind 20 from Ashley Dunn, her fifth consecutive 20+ dig match. Akron hung close by posting 12.0 blocks.
With the loss, Akron falls to 8-18 overall and 2-13 in MAC play. Bowling Green improves to 14-13 overall and 10-5 in the MAC. The Falcons close the regular season at Buffalo Saturday at 7 pm. The Bulls are 17-11 overall, but just 5-10 in the league. Buffalo is looking to clinch a bid to the MAC Tournament and could use a win to accomplish that on Senior Night.
