BGSU’s women’s volleyball team experienced some jitters last night during their first home match. They wore off quickly though, as the Falcons swept Oakland 30-20, 30-20, 30-21 to improve to 2-2 on the season. Oakland dropped to 1-3 on the year.

The Falcons played three tough games as Oakland put pressure on them throughout. But a big run in the middle of each game gave the Falcons some breathing room and let them escape with the victory.

“I’m happy about the win overall,” Head Coach Denise Van De Walle said. “We need to be sharper at the net but I think we may have had jitters because it was our first home match. It was great to get a win and give the crowd something to cheer about though.”

Kendra Halm led the Falcons with 12 kills and hit .400 while Stephanie Swiger had 10 kills but hit only .208. Corey Domek, the team’s leader in kills, was held to just 9. Chelsey Meek recorded 19 digs with Elizabeth Simon getting 11.

The team hit .254 for the match while holding Oakland to a .053 hitting percentage. As a team, the Falcons only recorded 4 blocks.

“We need to improve on blocking balls,” Van De Walle said. “We played just hard enough to win but we didn’t generate the kind of excitement with big kills or blocks that I anticipated. The team just has to work the kinks out early in the season.”

The three games were eerily similar in that the first half of each game was back and forth. But once the Falcons established a bit of a lead, there was no turning back as they ran away with all three games.

“It was great to finish strong because we weren’t able to do that in our big matches last year,” Swiger said. “This was a good test and we feel good about winning. We flowed better at times than the weekend’s matches and we just need to work on maintaining intensity.”

BGSU had 49 kills on the match while limiting Oakland to just 32. Oakland also committed nine more errors than the Falcons. The big leads at the end of each game were beneficial as most of the Falcons saw some playing time.

“Our bench did a great job stepping in when we need them,” Halm said. “We played pretty well overall but we need to bring a more all-around performance this weekend. We also need to stay aggressive when we are up and not let them back in at all.”

“We are still looking for a solid starting lineup but we have the kind of bench to contribute to our success,” Swiger said.

The Falcons will travel to Cal State Fullerton this weekend for a three-game tournament on Friday and Saturday.

The next time the Falcons have a home match will be during the BGSU Invitational as the Falcons will host DePaul Valparaiso and Duquesne that weekend.