It’s like a play off of Irving Shulman’s “West Side Story.” Mid-American Conference East versus MAC West. Bowling Green verse Western Michigan.
It will be the first home match for the volleyball team and what head coach Denise Van De Walle predicted as the best match-up of the season.
“They have five returning starters just like we do,” Van De Walle said. “They were picked to win the West we were picked to win the East. It’s going to be a showdown very early on in the match.”
The Broncos finished first in the MAC West last year. They have a 5-2 record this year, while the Falcons are currently 5-1. Both teams suffered a loss to Michigan State. Western played Dayton and Denver, the two matches BG had to cancel last week due to the terrorist attack.
“They basically have the same team as last year and so do we,” said sophomore middle Laura Twyman. ” We’ll just have to see how they improved over the summer.”
Last year the Falcons fell to the Broncos in three sets. They are hoping to turn the results around this year.
“It’s a big game,” Twyman said. “We’ll match up pretty good with them. It should be a competitive game. There will be a good crowd.”
The Broncos drew over 1,000 fans last year when the Flacons played at Western. Van De Walle is hoping that they will be able to draw just as many fans.
“I think fans will find the point per play exciting,” she said. Teams now play up to 30 points instead of the usual 15, so every error is a point.
“With rally score who makes the least amount of mistakes (errors) will come out on top,” Van De Walle said. “I believe by the time Friday rolls around we’ll be prepared. We need to take care of the ball on our side of the net. Serving is going to be important to us.” It’s something the Falcons have been concentrating and working on all week.
“When a team is big and physical like Western Michigan is, when they are in the system, they are very hard to stop,” Van De Walle said. “We feel that we have to take them out of the system and one of the ways you can do that is with effective serving.”
Bowling Green has spent the last three days practicing serving, ball control and blocking.
“Blocking will be very important also,” Van De Walle said. “Our middles need to have a big match. They are very important to our offense.”
Senior middle Caty Rommeck and junior middle Kristin Gamby were named to the Spartan Invitational All-Tournament Team. Rommeck is first in the MAC in both blocks (1.38) and kills per game (4.79), fifth in the league in hitting percentage (.403) and fifth in digs (2.96), while Gamby is fourth in the MAC in kills per game (3.88).
The Falcons might have a strong middle, but the Broncos are just as strong. WMU’s middle blocker senior Zakiya Pope was last year’s MAC player of the year.
“They are very physical and athletic,” Van De Walle said. “They may have more size than us, but I really feel that our ball control and our defense is going to be one of the pluses of Friday night’s match.”
