After having a tough fall season the Falcon volleyball team had much success this spring season.
They competed in the 14th Annual Spring Fling Tournament at Anderson Arena Saturday and won the eight-team tournament for their second title in three tournaments this spring.
” We did a really good job, not only in this tournament, but in the whole spring season especially in comparison to our fall season. It kind of helped make up for how we did in the fall,” Sara Sikorski said.
In the fall the Falcons had an overall record of 9-21 and a Mid-American Conference record of 4-14. So far this spring the netters have an overall record of 21-6 including a 5-1 record in the tournament Saturday.
“They were the toughest opponents we saw all spring,” Sikorski said. “It was a tough tournament because there were five MAC schools there out of eight teams and at all of the other tournaments we only saw one or two MAC teams.”
The Falcons competed in the Orange pool playing two games against each of the other three squads. Indiana-Purdue-Fort Wayne and MAC rivals Miami and Toledo competed in the same pool.
In the Brown pool, Ohio University finished in first place followed by Cleveland State, Eastern Michigan and Findlay. “OU had the player of the year still on their team and Eastern was coming off a good year and Miami is always a tough team. So we played really tough teams over the weekend,” Sikorski said. After playing all of the schools in their respected pools the teams competed in cross-over play where the Falcons faced Ohio defeating them 2-0.
“OU was the toughest team there other than us,” Sikorski said. “It was a big time win for us because they didn’t really lose a lot of people. They had the player of the year play along with a really great setter. They had size, they had speed and we were still able to beat them. It was really great feeling to do so well on the day and finish being the best team there.”
All five starting attackers for the Falcons had at least 2.0 kills per game on the day.
“It was really exciting to see our team come together, that’s really important in our game,” Sikorski said. “I thought Mel Mohr showed a lot of improvement over the spring season. Susie Norris and Taylor [Twite] both hit well on the day.”
Mohr hit .333 and had 1.38 blocks per game Saturday, while Norris led the Falcons with a team-high 4.75 kills per game in the tournament.
Twite has also had a solid spring season leading the Falcons in hitting efficiency with a .365 average.
Emily Manser, Twite and Norris are each averaging over 2.50 kills per game in the spring season.
