TOLEDO – Huddled in a circle, with their arms around each other, the BG volleyball players shouted out ‘Falcon pride.’

Unfortunately for them, it is the last time they will be able to say it this season.

After upsetting No. 6 Toledo last Tuesday in the first round of the Mid-American Conference Tournament, the Falcons were swept by No. 3 Miami Friday 3-0 (25-22, 25-23, 25-20) in the quarterfinals at the SeaGate Centre.

For seniors Corey Domek, Kaitlin Jackson and Shari Luther, it was their final match as BG volleyball players.

As the underdog, Luther, who had three kills on the afternoon, still approached the match as she would any other.

‘You’ve got to go in confident,’ she said. ‘We needed to be aggressive and play with confidence. I think Miami outplayed us this match and they definitely deserved to win it.’

It was somewhat hot and cold throughout the match for the Falcons.

‘At times we worked hard for every point,’ said coach Denise Van De Walle. ‘It took us a while to get going. We started off with some great blocking. We played decent defense, but we didn’t play great defense. [Miami] played with more confidence and more poise than we did.’

In the match, the Falcons were tied 21-21 in the first set, led 22-19 in the second and were tied 20-20 in the third, but the RedHawks did a better job of closing out the matches.

But it was really that second set that the Falcons should have won. After having leads of 7-3, 10-5 and 12-7, BG fell apart toward the end.

Luther was surprised it happened.

‘We just broke down,’ she said. ‘We’ll get a lead on a team and then we make a few errors and it kind of turns tables.’

Van De Walle really thought the team needed to take this set.

‘We could not get a first swing kill,’ she said. ‘It seemed like all the big rallies went Miami’s way. We were high error. It’s hard to win against a good team like Miami with 23 attack errors.’

In the third set, the Falcons were down, then battled back to take an 18-17 lead. At one point, the set was tied 20-20, but the RedHawks went on a 5-0 run to win the set, the match and to end the Falcons’ season.

As she did in the match against Toledo, Domek lead the way for the Falcons. She posted 14 kills and seven digs. Jackson had four kills and eight digs, Allison Kearney had 31 assists and Alex Zlabis posted 20 digs.

Luther was very pleased with how her fellow senior, Domek, played.

‘Corey Domek definitely really carried the team this match and put a lot of weight on her back,’ Luther said. ‘She played a great match and I’m really proud of her.’

The Falcons’ season ended with a record 13-20 overall and 5-11 in MAC play.’