It was a tale of two games against two completely different teams last weekend for the Bowling Green State volleyball team.
The Falcons swept Central Michigan for the second time this season Friday, only to suffer what head coach Denise Van De Walle called a “disappointing loss” at the hands of Western Michigan, losing to the Broncos in three sets Saturday night to fall into a third place tie with CMU in the Mid-American Conference West Division.
“It was half good and half not too good,” said Van De Walle referring to last weekend’s performances before yesterday’s practice. “Friday night couldn’t have gone any better, because we were in complete control from the moment we took the floor.
“Against Western Michigan, we looked very good but we lost composure when that overpass fell in untouched in the first game,” she said. “Game two we were still in shock that we lost. We went into the locker room and talked about how important game three was in any match … We had a good four point lead throughout the match, got to 29 before they did and couldn’t score one point.”
Taylor Twite led the Falcons (13-9, 6-4) with a game-high 18 kills in the win over the Chippewas (6-16, 3-8), and Melissa Mohr and Maggie Karges combined for 17 kills.
BG outhit CMU .273 to .173 and had 58 digs – eight more than the Chippewas – led by Ashlei Nofzinger and Emily Manser, who had 11 and 10, respectively.
Van De Walle said the team had extra motivation when they happened to pick up the student newspaper at CMU before the match.
“One of their players said some stuff about how they should have easily beaten us the last time they played us,” Van De Walle said. “The team saw it and that didn’t sit to well.”
Twite and Manser led the Falcons with 12 and 11 kills against WMU, respectively.
However, BG only hit .096, while the Broncos (12-9, 6-4) produced 19 blocks, 12 more than the Falcons.
Van De Walle said Western Michigan was a lot more physical than Central Michigan.
“Offensively, they had some players put up some big numbers that night and if you looked at our stat sheet, we didn’t,” she said. “A big reason is because they are a big blocking team … but I honestly think that we shot ourselves in the foot.”
BG will turn its attention to Friday night’s rematch against Western Michigan at Anderson Arena. The Falcons will host an Eastern Michigan squad on Saturday night that is 9-2 in the MAC and 14-8 on the year.
Van De Walle said the team’s focus during practice this week will be on finishing matches, something she said BG forgot how to do against the Broncos.
“I think we’re going to be extremely competitive and it’s going to show up everyday in practice,” she said. “We’re going to practice hard, and it’s going to be intense and it’s going to be focused.
