Bowling Green volleyball coach Denise Van De Walle didn’t expect her team to be destiny’s child heading into last night’s game against Dayton at Anderson Arena, but no one told the Falcons.
And a balanced offensive attack, coupled with a ‘total defensive effort’ helped BGSU (2-3) sing their way to the tune of a 3-1 victory over the Flyers, a team which won last season’s Atlantic 10 Conference Championship and competed in the NCAA Tournament.
The win extended the Falcons winning streak to 11 games in home openers.
‘I thought this was a total team effort tonight,’ Van De Walle said. ‘I really have a lot of respect for the Dayton program. This is a huge win for BG, especially this early with a veteran team going against a young team.’
Van De Walle said the winning streak wasn’t going to make a win any easier for her team.
‘I wish it was that easy,’ she said. ‘When I drove here I knew we had {the winning streak}. But when the match started that certainly wasn’t on mind. What was on my mind was how to stop Faye Barhorst from killing us.’
The Falcons used a strategy they never tried before in hopes of containing the 6-foot-3 junior, who ended the game with 19 kills and .342 hitting percentage.
‘She is an outstanding big time player,’ Van De Walle said. ‘She’s awesome … We tried to triple block her and then I had my center backs come in to about 15 feet and hope that they could just get in the path of the ball, because she jump touches about 10-6, 10-7 … We would have to stand on a box to simulate that in practice.’
BGSU was lead by Chrissy Gothke’s 11 kills, 12 digs and 40 assists. Despite the triple-trouble, it was the hustle plays that caught Van De Walle’s eye.
One in particular.
‘When Chrissy went flying into the floor board, that’s the kind of effort we’ve been talking about,’ she said.
Gothke was just happy to get the win.
‘If it happens, it happens,’ she said in reference to her career night. ‘This a great way to head into the weekend and it definitely gives us a boost.’
Emily Manser poured in 10 kills and 24 digs, tying a career-high. Ashlei Nofzinger had 10 kills and Freshman Chelsey Meek, a Bowling Green High School graduate, chipped in with a season-high 18 digs.
Meek said the team wanted to learn from the mistakes made in last weekend’s tournament
‘All of us had so much intensity and excitement and we just really wanted to win, especially coming from our tournament last weekend,’ she said. ‘We really wanted to win our first home game and I think we came out with a wonderful game plan, and did what we had to do to beat them.’
