No volleyball team in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) has been as hot as the Bowling Green Falcons, not just because they have no losses but because the quality of wins has been impossible to ignore.
In five MAC games, BG is 5-0 with two soaring sweeps, two reverse sweeps, and a five-set zig-zag match against Ball State on the first MAC match of 2024.
Not only is the win column impressive, but adding to it three weekly awards in a single week, milestones broken by Lauryn Hovey and Mia Tyler scoring 79 kills in only five games.
A two-game sweep against Western Michigan is the Falcons’s season highlight so far. Yet the Michigan opponents don’t stop as Eastern Michigan comes to town for a one-game match against BG in the Stroh Center.
Eastern Michigan
Eastern has found some great success in 2024, already surpassing their overall five-win mark in 2023. Their 4-1 conference record is tied with Central Michigan and Buffalo for second place (behind BG, of course), with wins over Kent State and Miami (OH) and a loss to Central Michigan.
The tarnish on their resume unfortunately comes at the hands of their opponent’s record. Neither Kent State nor Miami (OH) has a win in conference, two of three teams to have yet bested an opponent.
Even further, the Eagles have had their matches extended to five sets once by both teams, despite them being some of the worst teams in the MAC.
Like the Falcons, one of the strong points of the team is their blocking. They are statistically the best blocking team in the MAC with 193.5 total blocks and a 2.61 average blocks per set (/s) (BG has 152 total and 2.58/s).
They have two players among the conference leaders in blocking. Hatteras Welker is the MAC’s leading wall with 76 total blocks and 1.3 blocks/s. Her blocking partner Abby Stanford is ninth in the MAC in blocks/s with 0.98. If you do some quick math, you will find 2.28 of EMU’s 2.61 blocks come from the Welker and Stanford duo, second in the conference to Alexis Mettille and Jessica Andrews (2.37 blocks/s).
Game-to-game, Eastern Michigan has recorded the most blocks in the MAC, with four of their games cracking the top 10 in blocks recorded (21, 19, 17.5, 17 total blocks).
While their opponents may not have been of the highest caliber, EMU is currently the best blocking team in the MAC, and the match between the Eagles and Falcons will surely be a block party.
Falcon Media Sports Network’s Chas McNeil and Artie Abrego will have the call on Falcon Radio. First serve is set for Oct. 10, at 6 p.m.
