After losing their first two sets at Ball State, BG coach Denise Van De Walle sat her team down in the locker room and stressed to them how close they actually were to winning.

The Falcons listened carefully to what their coach said and came out and rallied back to beat the Cardinals in five sets, 25-27, 18-25, 25-22, 25-23, 15-9.

But after playing some of their best volleyball of the season, BG looked sub-par against Toledo the following day, losing in four sets.

In the win against the Cardinals, Corey Domek was the key.

Domek led the way for BG, posting her third career double-double. She had 19 kills and a career-high 15 digs.

Van De Walle was ecstatic with her performance.

‘Domek was on fire,’ she said. ‘She had a really, really impressive night. It was a really great performance.’

Setter Allison Kearney helped Domek out with 39 assists on the night while Shari Luther added 16 kills, improving her MAC-leading attack percentage to 3.97.

The Falcons led by as many as eight in the first set and had three chances to win with a 24-21 lead, but again, closing off the set was a big issue.

In the third set, the Cardinals had a 21-19 lead, but Domek and Emily Kauth combined for a block and Luther posted a kill to tie the score.

Ball State then fell apart as they had a service error and two attack errors, which helped the Falcons get the win, but it was all BG in the fifth game.

They scored five of the first six points, eventually building a 13-4 lead, and never looked back. Ball State hit -.059 in the final set and posted five attack errors.

‘We’re a pretty good team to 17 points,’ Van De Walle said. ‘I really feel we’re getting better and better as the players are getting more experienced.’

After the big win against Ball State, the Falcons’ momentum didn’t make it to Toledo.

‘The best way to describe it is we needed great defense to win and we didn’t have it,’ Van De Walle said. ‘I thought Toledo played really well. They played like they were going to win.’

The Rockets (14-8, 5-5 MAC) hit only .176 and .159 in the first two sets, but hit an impressive .357 and .400 in the final two.

Luther posted 13 kills and a .429 attack percentage while Alex Zlabis – who was still recovering from the flu – added 24 digs.

Kearney had 44 assists and 15 digs, giving her a double-double.

After dropping the opening set, BG had an 18-13 lead in the second set, but the Rockets came back to tie the score at 21. When the score was tied at 24, the Falcons got a Noelle Spitler kill and a Sam Fish ace to close out the set.

In the final set, BG hung pretty close, trailing only 17-18 at one point, but Toledo scored four of the next five points to close out the match.

Van De Walle thought Toledo played really well.

‘They looked a lot better live than they did on tape,’ she said. ‘We were a step slow defensively. They came out extremely hard and never quit.”