The Bowling Green volleyball team clinched the Mid-American Conference East Division title Saturday after Akron lost both of their games over the weekend.
Akron lost to Ohio in three games Friday and fell to Kent State in five games Saturday, making the Falcons the outright champions and second seed in the MAC tournament.
“What has turned out to be so special is the timing,” said BG coach Denise Van De Walle. “We just raised our 2000 banner last Tuesday and won the 2001 banner Friday. I’m really proud of the team and what we have accomplished.”
The Falcons will now host the quarterfinal round of the MAC Tournament against the seventh seed Western Michigan Tuesday at 7 p.m. BG only needed one win this past weekend to clinch a berth in the MAC Tournament and that win came on Friday as the Falcons defeated Kent State in five games. They turned around and lost to Toledo in three games Saturday for the first time at home in school history.
“(Kent State) was a great, great win for us,” said head coach Denise Van De Walle. “It was hard fought the very first game. When we won that one 31-29 we really thought we had the potential to win in three, but we had a little bit of a let down in game two.”
The Golden Flashes dominated the second game and came out on top, 30-26, but the Falcons came back in the third game.
“We rebounded back quickly in game three and beat them 30-11,” Van De Walle said. “We played very well. What tends to happen after a big blowout like that a lot of teams will go easy and that’s what we did. We kind of went soft in game four and then in game five it was all us.”
The Falcons lost game four 20-30 and came back to win the fifth game 15-9.
Junior Kristin Gamby led the Flacons with 24 kills and three total blocks, while senior Caty Rommeck posted 20 kills, four block assists and led the team with a .302 hitting percentage. Senior Natalie Becker had a team high 46 assists along with eight digs and three kills.
As a team the Falcons recorded 64 kills and seven team blocks, while the Golden Flashes had 66 kills and eight team blocks. Saturday was a different story for the Falcons, but one that was filled with emotion.
“We were outplayed tonight by Toledo,” Van De Walle said. “It’s never happened before.”
The Rockets defeated BG for the first time in Anderson Arena in three games (23-20, 27-20, 28-30) to end the regular season for the Falcons.
“Our passing was very poor and when our passing is off it’s really hard to run the offense,” Van De Walle said. “We weren’t very strong at the net. We didn’t block nearly as many balls as we needed to and we didn’t attack very efficiently.”
Rommeck was the only Falcon to post double digit kills with 16. She also had six digs and three block assists.
“Caty had a good night,” Van De Walle said. “Susie (Norris) also had a good night. She did some good things for us on the left side.” Norris led the Falcons in hitting percentage with a .357 on the evening.
She also had seven kills and two digs. Becker led the team with 40 assists. She also recorded seven digs.
Senior Amber Vorst led the Falcons with 10 digs. She also had nine kills and a block assist.
After the game the night was filled with tears and sorrow as the seniors said their goodbyes and were honored by Van De Walle. Each of the six seniors, Karen Amstutz, Becker, Shyann Robinson, Rommeck, Vorst and Kate Yeo gave a short speech and thanked the fans for coming out and supporting the team.
Notes:
Sophomore Laura Twyman was named to the Verizon Academic All-District University Division Volleyball Team. This was the first time in her career that she has earned academic all-district honors. She was named to the third team.
