Falcons Haunted by Bobcats in MAC Loss at Home on Halloween Night

Saturday, October 31

Bowling Green, Ohio

5:00 PM

Bowling Green State University

6-19, 2-10MAC

Ohio

20-5, 10-2MAC

Ohio

Bowling Green

Photo by: JD Pooley

Falcons Haunted by Bobcats in MAC Loss at Home on Halloween Night

October 31, 2015 | Volleyball

Box Score

By: by Kevin Davis, BGSU Assistant Director for Athletic Communications

Final Stats: Box Score (PDF)
Final Stats: Box Score (HTML)
Video: Post Match Interview with Coach Tomic
Photos: Photo Gallery (JD Pooley)

Bowling Green, Ohio – The Bowling Green State University volleyball team fell to the Mid-American Conference (MAC) leading Ohio Bobcats in straight sets 25-18, 25-20 and 25-20 on Halloween night inside the Stroh Center in Bowling Green, Ohio.

The three set match saw 15 ties and 10 lead changes, as neither team was able to pull out to a large lead over any of the three sets.

"I'm pleased with how we competed. I thought we fought. It is always hard to come back after an emotional win that we had last night winning in five against Kent and then playing another great team, one of the top teams in the MAC," commented head coach Danijela Tomic. "We just are not there yet. With our youth and the lack of depth it is just hard to come back and win against such a quality team. But, I'm pleased and like you said our defense was very good again."

Three Falcons totaled double digit digs on the evening led by freshman libero Kallie Seimet's match-high 24 digs, while juniors Madeline Garda and Jelena Sunjic chipped in with 14 and 10 digs apiece, respectively. Offensively, middle Alyssa Maloney registered a team-best 12 kills on a .308 attack percentage. Both Sunjic and Nicole Slimko added eight kills each for the match.

Ohio was led by Shelby Walker's match-high 14 kills, while Jaime Kosiorek and Karin Bull tallied eight and seven kills apiece. Setter Abbey Gilleland dished out 32 set assists, to go along with a match-high 15 digs, to lead the Bobcats to the win.

The Falcons looked tired out of the opening serve after an emotion five-set come from behind win over Kent State last night and fell behind to the Bobcats 9-2 to start the match on two straight BGSU attack errors.

BGSU settled down and fed off its defense to chip away at the Bobcats lead and get to within six at 11-5 on a Maloney kill and once again at 13-7 on a ball handling error by OU.

However, Ohio, who led from start to finish in the first set, would stay out in front of the Falcons over the next several services, until again BGSU closed the gap to six at 17-11, at 18-12 and once more at 19-13 on three Maloney spikes.

The home team would not get any closer than six for the remainder of the set, as Ohio's Katie Nelson put the set away with a kill to give the visitors the 25-18 opening set win.

BGSU began to find an offensive rhythm to start the second set, as the Falcons soared out to a 5-0 lead on two Maloney kills, a Scholten spike and ace, and an Ohio attack error.

The lead did not last long, however, as the Bobcats answered the BGSU run with a 5-0 run of its own to tie the set up at 5-5 on a kill by Walker.

Back-and-forth the two teams went until a kill from Slimko, followed by a spike from Brandewie propelled the Falcons ahead by two points at 11-9 midway through the set.

A Bull kill for OU ended the BGSU run and jump-started a series of five straight points from the visitors in green who clawed their way past the Falcons and back into the lead at 14-11.

The Falcons trimmed the lead back to two on several occasions – at 14-12 and again at 15-13 on two Slimko slams, and once more at 16-14 on a Sunjic kill – before the Bobcats pulled away late for the 25-20 second set victory.

An Isabel Kovacic kill gave the Falcons a 2-0 lead to start the third set, but again the Bobcats had an early set 5-0 run to take at 5-2 lead on a Katie Nelson kill.

The Orange and Brown scratched back into the set to tie the game up at 5-5 and again at 8-8, before retaking the lead at 9-8 on an OU error.

Six ties and five lead changes later, the Falcons saw an attack error and a Bobcats' service ace kick-off a 6-0 run to thrust Ohio into the lead by four at 18-14 on another kill from Bull.

The Falcons again battled back to get within three of the Bobcats at 18-15 and at 19-16, yet couldn't grapple away Ohio's momentum as the Bobcats held on for the 25-20 win to complete the straight sets sweep.

Despite matching OU with a total of 62 digs as a team for the match, Ohio totaled 10.0 blocks as a team on the night compared to the Falcons' 4.0 team blocks overall and recorded a team attack percentage of .256 for the three set match paralleled to BGSU's team attack percentage of .112.

"These matches, these tough teams that we are playing, are going to just make our young team better. We have so many freshmen and the experience that they are getting this year – it is tough and you are going to go through a lot of adversity and we are definitely learning how to be resilient," continued Coach Tomic. "These young women are not giving up. They're fighting and they're playing the best that they can and that is all that you can ask them to do."

BGSU (6-19, 2-10 MAC) will wrap up its regular season road slate next weekend with back-to-back MAC East road contests at Buffalo (Nov. 6, 5 p.m.) and at Akron (Nov. 7, 5 p.m.).

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