Another week of Mid-American Conference (MAC) volleyball is in the books, which was highlighted by upsets and sweeps.
The Buffalo Bulls remained on top in the standings with a 6-1 conference record, while Central Michigan, Toledo, Bowling Green, and Eastern Michigan all tied for second with a 5-2 record.
Let’s dive into the past week.
Bowling Green loses two nail-biters
The Falcons came into this week hoping to stay undefeated in conference play. They faced Eastern Michigan Thursday night.
The game showed why volleyball can be such a chaotic sport. The Falcons beat the Eagles in every single major statistical category; in fact, the Falcons actually passed up Eastern Michigan in blocks per set after the game was over, climbing to first in the MAC for that category.
Mia Tyler had her career high in kills with 21, and Amanda Otten had a season-high of 63 assists in the game. In comparison, the Eagles scoring leader was Abby Stanford with 15 kills.
Despite these statistical feats, EMU beat the Falcons in five sets, with each of the three set wins for the Eagles going into extras with final scores of 26-24, 30-28, and 16-14.
The following day, the Chippewas came to the Stroh to take on Bowling Green. Central Michigan has a face-paced, unrelenting offense where the ball gets spread out to all of their hitters.
The Falcons hoped to shut down this offense with strong blocking, which they did in the second and fourth sets, having 13 total blocks on the day.
But history repeated itself, with Chippewas taking sets one, three, and five and securing the victory.
This time, however, the statistics were much higher even between the two teams. The Chippewa’s leading scorer was Natalia Rejment with 17 kills, while Lauren Hovey led the Falcons with 14.
Both teams spread the ball well throughout the game, and it was an exciting one to watch. It was one that in the end came down to simple mistakes, and the Falcons made more of them.
This game dropped the Falcons to 5-2 while also improving the conference record of the Chippewas to 5-2.
In both of these games, Bowling Green played some of its best and worst volleyball. Certain rotations became nightmares for the Falcons.
Coach Tomic tried to shake things up, even subbing in the young Isabelle Laube and moving Hovey to setter to get out of the rotation.
In the end, it was too little, too late, and the Falcons would have to figure out how to limit these slumps or stop them together moving forward.
Buffalo Rolls through Week Three Competition
On Tuesday, Buffalo faced off against Akron on the Zip’s home floor. Both teams have great chemistry and showed it off in this match.
Each of the first three sets came down to the final few points, with the Bulls leading 2-1. The duo of the Leigh sisters was hot, with Abby Liegh having ten blocks and Mandy Leigh having 42 assists on the night.
The final set was not as close, with a final score of 25-18. The Zips put up a good fight, and they seem to be a strong opponent, but this Buffalo team looks unstoppable right now.
The Bulls continued their hot streak against Miami on Friday. The RedHawks were 0-5 going into this game, while Buffalo was 5-1.
Buffalo looked like they were going to get themselves an easy win in this game, going up 2-0, but Miami fought back into it.
Miami’s kill leader, Reagan Lantz, had 17 at the end of the game and played very impressively.
The RedHawks tied up the sets 2-2 and aimed to pull a reverse sweep, but the Bulls had other plans. Intent on coming out with the victory, Katrin Trebichavska, a UB outside hitter, scored five kills for the Bulls in the final set, with 22 kills on the day.
Buffalo wins this game as well, three sets to two.
On Saturday, the Bulls had another road game in a matchup against Ball State. This was a very tight game all the way through, with every set coming down to a few points.
Katrin Trebickaveska had 23 kills this game, leading all scorers; she is a dangerous threat to any defense in the MAC. She also led both teams in digs with 17, playing both offense and defense.
Buffalo pulled out this win three sets to one, with both teams playing well, but UB managed to find the points at the end of the sets more often than the Cardinals.
UB has a strong serving game all around and runs more back-row attacks than any other MAC team. The Falcons will have to be prepared to play great defense if they hope to end the Bull’s hot streak in their game this coming Thursday on UB’s home court.
With these three straight wins, UB improves their MAC record to 6-1, putting them in first place in the standings.
Toledo Wins Both Games
The Rockets had a home stand this week, facing Central Michigan on Thursday. The Toledo offense was clicking on all cylinders for this game while also shutting down the CMU attack.
UT had 11 blocks in this one, while the Chippewas had four. Redshirt freshman Sierra Petzborn led all defenders with 6 blocks.
The Rockets as a team had a hitting percentage of.329 in comparison to the Chippewas. 147 hitting percentage. Further proving UT disrupted CMU’s offensive flow.
Toledo won this match 3-1, with final scores of 33-31, 25-17, 25-23, and 25-12.
The next day Toledo faced EMU. The Eagles were feeling good after their upset against BGSU.
Despite the fact that Eastern Michigan had 12 blocks to Toledo’s one, the Rockets won this game in three straight sets, bringing out the brooms against the Eagles.
Izzy Granger led all scorers with 15 kills, with Taylor Alt not close behind with 12 kills of her own.
These matches improved Toledo’s record to 5-2, while EMU’s record also reads 5-2.
Kent State Gets Swept Twice
The Golden Flashes are still looking for their first MAC win this season, falling in straight sets to both NIU and Western Michigan.
Their win against Kent was the Huskies’ first win of their MAC campaign this season.
So far this season, Kent State seems unable to keep up with whomever they’re playing, allowing the most kills and service aces per set while also averaging the least kills and assists per set.
They fall to 0-7 on the season; hope they can turn it around and discover a way to win a few games in MAC play.
Miami Remains Winless in MAC
Although Miami put up a real fight against the best team in the MAC so far this season, they are still without a win.
The Red Hawks lost to Ball State in four sets on Tuesday at home, then went on to lose to Akron again in four sets.
The problem may be Miami’s aggressiveness in their attacks; they have the lowest hitting percentage in the MAC.
Whatever the reason, the Red Hawks have been unable to clutch out a game this season thus far, but they have the means to turn it around. They sit at 0-7 just like Kent.
Other Matchups from Week 3
On Thursday, Western Michigan swept Ohio at home, bouncing back after their slow start to the season. Their two wins this week through two sweeps improved their record to 3-3.
On Friday, Ohio recovered from being swept by WMU and instead did the sweeping of NIU. The Bobcats’ Anna Kharchynska led all scorers with 14 kills. This win improves OU’s conference record to 3-3 and NIU’s to 1-5.
Also on Thursday, Ball State quickly swept Akron at home. The final scores of the three sets were 25-16, 25-16, and 25-20. After this matchup, Ball State moved to 3-4 in the MAC, while Akron is now 4-3.
