In February, Division I volleyball made the change to the rally scoring system to speed up college volleyball as well as bring a little more excitement to the game. The Bowling Green volleyball team got all the excitement it could handle, but ironically still found itself in three long battles with conference foes over the last week.
Games against Kent, Toledo and Eastern Michigan went right down to the wire. In each instance, a decisive fifth game was needed for a team to win. The Falcons rallied from behind in all three matches, coming up victorious against the Golden Flashes and Eagles to improve their record to 10-4 overall and 4-3 in the MAC.
Kent came into Anderson Arena for the first time since knocking the Falcons out of the first round of the MAC Tournament last year. The Golden Flashes started where they left off last year, playing the aggressor early on, winning the first two games 32-30 and 30-23.
“We knew Kent was a very aggressive team,” BG coach Denise Van De Walle said. “Their personality on the court was very aggressive.”
Van De Walle said the game plan early on was to take it to Kent and show them that the Falcons were the aggressor. That didn’t happen mainly because Van De Walle believes her team was tipping the ball over the net too many times instead of hitting solid shots.
“I didn’t understand how we said we were going to play aggressive, but then our offensive choice was to tip,” Van De Walle said. “I told them when we went into the locker room that we had to stay aggressive and not tip. We came out in the third game and started hitting the ball a lot better and playing much more aggressively.”
The rejuvenated Falcons fought back to win game three 30-24 and game four 30-21. By the fifth game, the Falcons carried all the momentum.
“By game five, I had no doubt that we were going to win,” outside hitter Nadia Bedricky said. “Our team takes a little while to warm up, but once we get going, we start cranking it out.”
With the momentum in their favor, the Falcons scored the first six points of game five and went on to win the game and match with a 15-7 decision.
The same situation was apparent for rival Toledo. The Falcons started off slow, losing the first two games 35-33 and 30-27. BG once again rallied back with a 31-29 and 30-22 decisions in game three and four respectively. BG did not repeat their comeback against the Rockets like they did against Kent. Toledo dominated the fifth game 15-6 to take the match. Senior middle hitter Caty Rommeck led the Falcons with 25 kills and 12 digs.
The final match against Eastern Michigan finally saw a change for BG, although not much of one. For the first time in three matches, the Falcons came back after losing the first game to win the second one. EMU and BG once again traded wins in games three and four, with a 30-17 decision by the Eagles in game three and a 30-19 decision by the Falcons in game four. BG nipped Eastern in the final game 16-14. Rommeck once again led the Falcons with 23 kills and 20 digs.
