Falcons Fade in 3-1 Road Loss at WMU

Saturday, October 10

Kalamazoo, Mich.

7:00 PM

Bowling Green State University

5-14, 1-5MAC

Western Michigan

8-13, 4-2MAC

Team	1	2	3	4	Final F
Bowling Green	25	17	26	17	1
Western Michigan	12	25	28	25	3

Photo by: Christine Nelson, BGSU Marketing & Communications

October 10, 2015 | Volleyball

Box Score

By: by Kevin Davis, Assistant Director for Athletic Communications

Box Score (PDF)
Box Score (HTML)

Kalamazoo, Mich. – The Bowling Green State University volleyball team dominated the Western Michigan University Broncos in a 25-12 first set win, yet wavered over the rest of the match as the Broncos held off the Falcons over the next three sets to take a 3-1 win over the Falcons on Saturday night at University Arena in Kalamazoo, Mich.

After BGSU won the first set 25-12, WMU seized the momentum in the second set and held off the Falcons with scores of 25-17, 28-26 and 25-17 in the four set win.

"Despite this loss, we saw many positives and a lot of improvement in our young team tonight. We had three players in double digit kills, our overall hitting efficiency was much better, especially in sets one and three, and our serve and serve receive game improved from our match on Thursday," head coach Danijela Tomic stated.

BGSU falls to 5-14 overall and 1-5 in MAC play, while with the win WMU moves to 8-13 overall and 4-2 in league play.

The trio of Falcons who had double digit kills were Jelena Sunjic with 13, Nicole Slimko with 11 and Alyssa Maloney with 10, while Kallie Seimet registered 19 digs and Madeline Garda added 17 digs in the match. Setter Katie Scholten posted 41 assists, nine digs and five kills, while freshman middle hitter Madeline Brandewie added five kills and freshman Isabel Kovacic tallied seven digs, two service aces and two solo blocks.

BGSU had seven service aces and 7.0 total team blocks on the night, both of which were one more than the Broncos had overall as a team, however, BGSU only totaled 144 attack attempts compared to 152 attacks by WMU.

WMU also had three players record double digit spikes with Syndey LeMay and Olivia Kofie each posting a match-high 14 kills apiece, while Alysia Baznik chipped in with 13 kills of her own in the win. Along with her 13 kills Baznik also led the Broncos with 17 digs, while setter Mary Murphy posted a double-double of 47 assists and 13 digs overall.

"We knew that in order to beat WMU we had to stop or at least neutralize their middle blockers. Unfortunately, we did not accomplish that either with our blocking nor our back row defense, especially in the third set in which we came so close to winning," continued Tomic. "We will continue to get better and wait for the next opportunity to bounce back."

The Falcons opened the match up with a kill from Maloney and then retook the lead at 5-4 on a WMU attack error, before pushing the lead to as much as three at 7-4.

Following two straight points by WMU to cut the BGSU lead to one at 7-6, the Falcons answered with a 4-1 run, highlighted by a Seimet service ace, to take a four point lead at 11-7 on a Slimko slam.

After a Baznik kill put the Broncos down three at 11-8, the Falcons ran off four straight points, capped off by a block from the combo of Sunjic and Maloney, to expand their lead to seven at 15-8.

A WMU kill ended the run, but a second block from the team of Sunjic and Maloney helped the visitors explode with a 10-3 scoring burst to close out the first set and pick up a 25-12 first set win in dominant fashion.

BGSU, who hit .276 overall and held WMU to a negative attack percentage of -.031 in the first set, looked to carry over the momentum from the opening set blowout to the second set only to see the Broncos score first and ride out to a 6-3 lead on a Bailey Schnell block and a Baznik kill.

The Falcons used kills from Slimko and Maloney, as well as errors from WMU, and another kill from Kovacic to get to within two points five different times midway through the second set, yet couldn't string together consecutive points which allowed the Broncos to stay out in front and take a 13-9 lead on a BGSU error.

Out of a BGSU timeout, the Falcons put together two straight points only once over the next 10 serves and found themselves losing ground to the Broncos who pushed their lead out to six at 19-13.

After a second Falcon timeout, BGSU picked up a solo block from Kovacic, followed by a block from the tandem of Maloney and Sunjic, to get within four of the Broncos at 19-15.

However, WMU outscored the Falcons 6-2 down the stretch to hold on for the 25-17 second set victory and tie the match up at 1-1.

The third set saw five ties and would go beyond the needed 25 points and, yet the Falcons never led in the 28-26 loss.

BGSU tied the set up at early at 1-1, only to see WMU jump out to a five point lead at 11-6 on a Caroline Rose service ace and force the Falcons to call a timeout.

After trading points, the Orange and Brown closed the gap to two at 12-10 on a Scholten service ace and again at 13-11 on a Maloney kill, yet was unsuccessful in grabbing the lead away from the Broncos who pulled back out in front by as much as four at 21-17 on a LeMay spike.

That's when a Slimko slam and a Maloney spike seemed to sway the energy back to the side of the visitors, as BGSU cut the lead to one at 21-20.

WMU responded with a Kofie kill and a Murphy ace to retake a three-point lead at 23-20 and force another Falcons' timeout.

Refusing to quit, BGSU took advantage of a WMU service error and then picked up a kill from Sunjic and an ace from Maloney to knot the set up for a second time at 23-23.

The two teams would trade points to tie the score up at 24-24, 25-25 and 26-26, before WMU posted a kill from Schnell and a block from both Murphy and LeMay to escape with a 28-26 triumph over the Falcons in the tight third set.

As in the previous two sets, BGSU tied the set up at 1-1, but this time the two teams went back-and-forth to until two straight points by the Broncos gave the home team a 9-7 lead on a Kofie kill.

Bowling Green battled back to tie the set up at 10-10 on a 3-1 run, yet couldn't wrestle away the lead from WMU who answered with five straight points and an overall scoring run of 8-1 to rush out to a seven point lead at 18-11.

The lead proved to be too much for the Falcons, as BGSU got to within five at 20-15 on a kill from Slimko, but would not get any closer in the 25-17 loss.

The Falcons (5-14, 1-5 MAC) will return home to host both Central Michigan (Oct. 16) and Eastern Michigan (Oct. 17) next weekend at the Stroh Center as part of the Homecoming festivities at BGSU.

###