Bowling Green volleyball gained their second win of the season and earned a sweep against Northern Illinois at the Stroh Center Saturday night.
The Falcons looked dominant in the three sets this match. BGSU out hit NIU 39.4% to 10.6%. They also had 50 kills this match compared to the Huskies’ 28.
“Our offense came through for us. The offense was able to do that because of the first contact. We did a better job with our transition game,” BGSU head coach Danijela Tomic said.
Junior Katelyn Meyer would once again lead the team in kills with 19. Meyer also led the team in ponts with 19. Sophomore Petra Indrova would be second with 18 points.
During the first set, it was a repeat of yesterday. Both teams struggled to establish a lead. After an 11-11 tie, BGSU would hold a sizable advantage the rest of the way. The closest NIU would get to BGSU is when the Falcons led 19-18.
The Falcon offense would eventually find a rhythm though as they took the 25-20 set win. As a team, the Falcons had 19 kills and a hitting percentage of 44.7%
BGSU kept up the offensive intensity in the second set as they had a hitting percentage of 43.3%. At one point, BGSU would be up 17-11.
But as the set went on the Huskies would be able to claw back. NIU got back to within one with the score being 22-21 BGSU lead. Two costly attacking errors by the Huskies gave the Falcons the set, 25-22.
Like their last game, BGSU would be up two sets to none entering the third set. This time, BG wanted to show what they were capable of in the third set.
“We wanted to attack and show everyone what we were doing. We wanted to show how hard we were working,” Meyer said.
The Falcons came out firing, taking a commanding 8-3 lead. But once again, the Huskies would show their grit tying the game up at nine early in the set.
The teams continued to battle it out, eventually reaching a tie at 13. From that point on, the Falcons dug deep and pulled out a 25-18 set win.
BGSU would outhit NIU 30.6% to -3.3% in the last set. The Falcons had the edge in kills, 15-7.
Despite the sweep on the weekend, Tomic saw some things that the Falcons need to improve as they continue on to conference play.
“We are making too many service errors. It’s something we are taking more risks in,” Tomic said.
The Falcons would have 17 service errors in the match. The Huskies only had four.
The Falcons will travel to Kalamazoo to take on Western Michigan next for a Thursday, Friday series against the Broncos. The Thursday match is set for 7 p.m. EST.
