BGSU volleyball won their season opener over Northern Illinois, defeating the Huskies in five sets at the Stroh Center Friday night.
The Falcons would win the first two sets, taking a commanding lead. But the Huskies would fight back making the Falcons go to fifth set to earn the win.
“I’m thrilled that we earned our first win. It was a hard fought win against a tough NIU team,” Head Coach Danijela Tomic said.
Junior Katelyn Meyer picked up where she left off last season, leading the team in kills with 20 on the match. She would also lead the team in points with 20.5. Not far behind her, sophomore Petra Indrova and freshman Katrin Trebichavska each had 19 points.
Both teams had hitting percentages of 20.9%, but BGSU had the edge in kills 67-52.
In the first two sets, the teams were going blow for blow. They would be tied late into the set.
In the first set, Meyer would have three kills during a 5-1 run to give the Falcons the early lead.
In the second set, it would be an overall team effort to win 25-20 after being tied at 17. As a team, they had a hitting percentage of 44.1%.
In the third set, they came out flat and were down 18-24. The Falcons would come back to tie it up at 24. NIU eventually won the set 26-24.
It was all NIU in the fourth set as BGSU had a hitting percentage of 6.5%. The Huskies gained momentum towards the end by outplaying the Falcons on offense.
Despite losing their early lead, the team never lost hope before the fifth set.
“We knew we were protecting the Stroh. We were going to win on this court today, the first game, after a year and a half (of not playing),” Indrova said.
In the fifth set, NIU out hit BGSU 31.8% to 20%. Despite that difference, the Falcons were able to pull off the 15-13 set win to close out the match.
Overall, BGSU produced an efficient offense. They had scored 81 points in the match compared to the 67 NIU scored.
It will be a quick turn around for the Falcons as they will play the Huskies again tomorrow at the Stroh.
Tomic expects this team to be ready for the Huskies tomorrow.
“I think they are going to come back and compete even harder than they competed today,” Tomic said.
The game is slated to start at 5 p.m. EST and will be aired on ESPN 3.
