The Bowling Green volleyball team learned the lesson that sometimes your best just isn’t good enough. Only they learned it the hard way.

The Falcons fell in four matches to a strong Eastern Michigan squad that brought their A-game with them to open the Mid-American Conference tournament.

“We played good,” head coach Denise Van De Walle said. “Eastern just played better.”

The Falcons would have high points and low points throughout the match which had scores of 24-30, 26-30, 30-28 and 21-30. It was the Falcon seniors that led them onto the court with strong performances.

Susie Norris led the team with 22 digs and 15 kills. Dana Chapman and Samantha Rennau both had solid performances with 13 digs a piece and Nadia Bedricky had an impressive outing with 10 digs.

“Sam and Susie had good nights,” Van De Walle said. “Nadia passed very well and Dana Chapman had a good night as well. The seniors probably felt good about their performances.”

The team also got solid performances from Taylor Twite, who was recently named honorable mention All-MAC and Chrissy Gothke who would tie Norris for the team lead in digs with 22.

Even all of the stellar performances weren’t enough to overcome the efforts of the Eagles. The high level of play from EMU would lead to disappointment for the Falcons.

“My dream and goal was to go to Muncie [for the MAC tournaments],” Van De Walle said. “I just wish we could’ve hit better shots and blocked the ball more.”

But the team knows they still have a bright future ahead of them with six returnees for next years team on top of five new recruits. “We signed four kids and another committed to walk on,” Van De Walle said. “And our six returning players are solid. But it is always hard to replace seniors.”