Falcons Fall To MAC Leader Ohio

Friday, November 14

Athens, Ohio

7 PM

Bowling Green State University

7-20 (4-11MAC)

Ohio

22-4 (15-0MAC)

Bowling Green

Ohio

November 14, 2014 | Volleyball

Box Score

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

Box score

Athens, Ohio – The Bowling Green State University volleyball team was officially eliminated from Mid-American Conference Tournament contention Friday night, losing to MAC leader Ohio in three sets, 25-20, 25-20, 25-14 on the road.

Ohio remained undefeated in the conference with the win, improving to 15-0 and clinching at least a share of the league regular season crown and the No. 1 seed for the MAC Tournament. BGSU dropped to 4-11 in MAC play this year, entering the final weekend of play needing two wins to earn a bid to the league tournament.

"Great teams are able to prevent their opponents from executing their game plan," BGSU Head Coach Danijela Tomic said. "That's what happened to us tonight. We will learn from this loss and hopefully bounce back tomorrow against Kent State to finish the season with a win."

Sophomore libero Madeline Garda continued her tremendous play. The two-time defending MAC East Defensive Player of the Week recorded 25 kills, marking the fourth consecutive match that she reached that number. She already led the conference in digs per set in league play with 5.73 per set entering the contest. She boosted that average to 5.87 per set with the performance. She needs 11 digs Saturday to post just the sixth season in program history with at least 500. Over the past five matches, Garda is averaging an eye-popping 7.05 digs per set.

As a team, BGSU hit just .067 for the match, peaking with a solid .259 effort in the second set. But that came mostly due to just one attack error as the Falcons posted only eight kills in the frame. In fact, Ohio had 43 kills for the match, 20 more than Bowling Green. Jelena Sunjic led BGSU with eight kills and added a .258 attack percentage but no other Falcon had more than five kills.

"We knew that in order to beat Ohio, we had to run a very disciplined and efficient offense, and our outside hitters had to find a way to score, but unfortunately that did not happen," Tomic said. "We had one of our worst offensive performances this year against the best team in the conference and the final score was the result of that."

Both the first and second set were competitive throughout and BGSU held a healthy lead midway through the second. In that frame, the Falcons jumped out to an early 4-1 lead and then used a 9-2 run later to take a 16-11 lead. But Ohio turned the tables with a seven-point run to take a three-point edge at 20-17 and the Bobcats never looked back.

Ohio used that momentum in the third set to score six straight early in the set and run away for the 25-14 win.

Outside of some of the attacking woes, the Falcons did have a few strong individual performances. Along with Garda's 25 digs, senior Erica Fullenkamp handed out 20 assists, served up three aces and dug out six balls. The other senior, Kelsey Bates, had four kills and a team-best four blocks.

Ohio improved to 22-4 overall with the win and BGSU falls to 7-20. The Falcons close the season Saturday at Kent State at 7 pm.