Sept. 25

The Bowling Green State University volleyball team defeated Akron University 3-1 on Sept. 25. The win capped off a 2-0 weekend at Akron. 

Petra Indrova continues to have an impressive season. She led the team in kills with a season high 21 this game. Indrova also led the team in total blocks with four solo blocks and two block assists. 

Hanna Laube continued to efficiently run this offense. She had a season high in assists with 57. 

After sweeping Akron the day before, BGSU continued their dominance. They won Set 1 25-10. The Falcons looked like they were ready to sweep again. 

BGSU started the second set hot. This time, Akron held strong and kept the set close. 

As a team, the Falcons hit for 22% with 16 kills. The Zips hit for 21.1% but had 13 kills. Despite having less kills, the Zips committed less errors and won Set 2 25-23. 

From that point on, BGSU hit for over 30% in the next two sets. The team toned down on the errors. 

In the third set, the Falcons were down early 1-5. They rallied to keep the set close. Akron hit for 26.2% with 15 kills. 

The set would go into extra points. Meyer capped off the set with a kill to give the Falcons a 27-25 set win. 

The fourth set started close. Eventually, BGSU broke open and poured it on Akron. With 16 team kills and only 3 attacking errors, the Falcons ended the set on a 12-6 run. 

BGSU sealed the match with a 25-14 Set 4 win. 

The win gets BGSU to a 6-6 record and a 2-0 conference record. 

The Falcons will return to the Stroh to face Buffalo in back to back games on Oct. 1 and Oct. 2. The game on Oct. 1 will start at 6 p.m. EST while the game on Oct. 2 will start at 5 p.m. EST.

Sept. 24

BGSU volleyball swept the Akron Zips in 3 sets on Sept. 24 in the Zips home gym. Each set progressively got more competitive, but the Falcons were still able to come out on top.

Kerstie Shaw led the Falcons out of a 4-4 score to begin the first set with 17 straight points, making the score 21-4, and quickly leading the Falcons to secure the first set.

Being behind the line for that long is not only physically, but also mentally draining. Shaw was able to stay focused and take advantage of the Zips team struggling with serve receive.

Faith Johnson from Akron led the side out with a kill from the outside. But the name of the game for the Falcons was serving, as the majority of their points were coming from the service line. The Zips proved to be struggling as they used up their timeouts frequently in hopes to ice BGSU servers.

The Falcons continued to be consistent behind the line, and also found success in mixing up through tips and hits. They found holes in the Zips defense, and Petra Indrova and Katelyn Meyer left the court with a total of 22 kills combined; Indrova had 13, and Meyer had 9. 

Not only were the Falcons strong offensively, but they played smart and communicated on the defensive end. They didn’t touch the balls on their way out of bounds, their serve receive proved efficient and their blocks were always in the right spot at just the right time. BGSU had blocking states with 11, while the Zips had 4.

Libero Julia Walz led the team with 11 digs, however because the Zips were on defense for the majority of the game, the Zips’ Emily Weigand, had an impressive game with 18 digs. Akron struggled siding out, even if they managed to secure a dig, and it was from too many free balls.

Overall, the Zips’ tough first match gave the Falcons confidence and momentum going into the rest of the game that helped them come out on top. The second match they proved to stay closer to BGSU with a score of 25-16, and the third game was a nail biter with an ending score of 25-22. The last time these two teams competed was back in November 2019, and the Falcons swept the Zips both times.