This week of Mid-American Conference (MAC) volleyball didn’t see many close games. It was a week made up of mostly sweeps, with only three games seeing a fifth set.
Bowling Green and Central Michigan are now tied with Buffalo for first place in the MAC with a 7-2 record. Toledo and Eastern Michigan are in second at 6-3.
Let’s get into it.
Falcons go on the road and get back-to-back sweeps.
On Thursday, the Falcons went to Buffalo to face the Bulls. Coming into this game, the Bulls sat on top of the MAC with a 6-1 record.
The Buffalo setter, senior Mandy Leigh, had a season-high 59 assists last week against Miami. Her sister, sixth-year middle blocker Abby Leigh, also had a season-high 19 kills against the RedHawks. To top it off, UB led and still leads the MAC in service aces, with 1.79 per set.
Safe to say this was supposed to be a tough game for the Falcons to win. Key words: Supposed to be. What happened was the Falcons romped the Bulls in three straight sets.
The Orange and Brown had the Bulls beat in every major statistical category, including aces (5-2). Buffalo, a team that usually makes a few hitting mistakes, made a lot of them. Their team-hitting percentage was .030 after three sets.
Meanwhile, Bowling Green capitalized on these mistakes. The Falcons spread the ball out this game, with five hitters having five or more kills.
Senior outside hitter Mia Tyler, junior opposite hitter Lauren Hovey, and fifth-year middle blocker Alexis Mettille led the team with seven apiece.
Hovey also led the Falcons in aces with three and digs with 10.
Winning this game gave the Falcons a boost of momentum after suffering two losses last week. The final scores for each set were 25-19, 25-18, and 25-16.
The Falcons then continued their road trip on Friday to Akron, where they took on the Zips. Akron is a team with great chemistry that has given the toughest teams in the MAC some trouble this season.
Akron started the game strong against the Orange and Brown, going up 6-1 on the Falcons. BGSU bounced back with a great attack. The first set went back and forth for a long time, reaching extras.
Even then, neither team was letting up. Finally, BG went on a 3-0 run and won the set 30-28.
The second set also went to extra points, with the Falcons winning 26-24. In the first two sets, the Zips stayed with the Falcons through great hustle plays and great aim on their hits.
That came to a stop in the third set. Akron held with the Falcons for a while, but Bowling Green junior setter Amanda Otten picked up the offensive pace and left the Zips in the dust. BG wins and gets a sweep, with a set win of 25-18.
The kill leaders for the Falcons were Hovey and Tyler, with 12. But Akron’s freshman outside hitter Delaney Gash was tearing it up out there, too, with 11 kills, the most by any Zip this match.
These two road games were huge for the Falcons, especially after losing twice at home last week. So putting two sweeps in the win column is huge, and something head coach Danijela Tomic has to be very excited about.
Bowling Green, Buffalo, and Central Michigan are now all tied atop the MAC with 7-2 conference records. Meanwhile, Akron falls to below .500, sporting a 4-5 record.
Kent State is still searching for their first win.
On Friday, the Golden Flashes hosted the Miami RedHawks for a matchup between the two teams with the worst records in the MAC conference. Neither team had a win coming into this game, so something had to give.
Miami took the first two sets with scores of 25-16 and 26-24, outkilling the Golden Flashes 36 to 22. However, Kent State fought back hard and tied the match 2-2 with set wins of 25-23 and 29-27.
Just when it looked like Kent State had the momentum and would complete a reverse sweep for their first MAC win of the season, the Red Hawks said enough of that and won the fifth set 15-9.
Despite the loss, Kent State put up a good fight. As a team, the Golden Flashes had an insane 19 blocks. Their lead hitter was senior opposite hitter Anna Shoemake, with 17 kills.
Miami had 81 kills this game, with 23 of them coming off the hand of sophomore outside hitter Chelsea Williams. This game gets the Redhawks their first win in MAC play.
The next day, the Golden Flashes stayed at home to face Ball State. The Cardinals won quickly via a sweep.
The final scores of each set were 25-22, 25-20, and 25-22. Kent State seems unable to get a win in conference play.
Ball State won with the help of 11 aces and 44 kills, dominating the Golden Flashes from the start. The one thing Kent seems to have going for them is their blocking ability. They had seven blocks this game, with 1.98 blocks a set.
Kent State now falls to 0-9 in the conference, sitting alone in dead last.
Western Michigan remains inconsistent.
Western Michigan was projected to be the number-one team in the MAC this season. Instead, they are still sitting at .500, losing one and winning one this week on their home court.
The Broncos took on Central Michigan on Thursday and got swept badly. They lost to the Chippewas in every major statistic besides digs (60-56) and were unprepared for the fast-paced Central Michigan attack.
The final scores of these sets were 25-23, 25-18, and 25-21. The fifth-year setter Logan Case of Western Michigan only had 31 assists, not up to her usual MAC setter of the year standards.
Central Michigan’s kill leader was freshman middle blocker Grace Thomas with 16, in comparison, the Bronco’s kill leader, senior outside hitter Julia Marr, only had eight kills.
But despite the loss, the Broncos looked impressive in their matchup against Eastern Michigan the next day. The Eagles could not find ways to get kills due to the imposing defense of WMU.
Western Michigan swept EMU in three straight sets, redeeming themselves for the previous game’s failures. The scores of the game were 25-17, 25-14, and 25-21.
The staggering defensive play of the Broncos was led by Marr and senior middle blocker Maddison Mertz, with four kills each, as well as the fifth-year libero, Andelyn Simkins, who had 15 digs on the day.
The Broncos are now 4-4 in MAC play, a long way away from where everyone thought they would be at the start of the season.
Is Toledo a contender in the MAC?
Toledo sits in second place in the MAC with a conference record of 6-3, and they seem to be the only team in the MAC sticking to the preseason rankings, in which they were sixth.
This week, the Rockets handled Akron well, beating the Zips in four sets on Thursday at Akron. Toledo’s kill leader was fifth-year outside hitter Taylor Alt, who had 20 kills. The Zips fought back in the third set, but the Rockets mounted a comeback in the fourth that won them the match.
This is what got Toledo to six wins on the season, their other wins against CMU, EMU, and NIU were all teams ranked lower than them in the preseason coaches poll. The Rockets also split their series against OU, who were fifth in the preseason rankings.
On the other hand, Buffalo was dominant against Toledo, sweeping the Rockets in a match where the only close set was the first one. Scores for the three sets were 25-23, 25-16, and 25-18.
This, again, aligns with the preseason polls, as the Bulls were ranked fourth in the poll. The other Rocket loss happened against the Falcons at the Stroh Center. Bowling Green was ranked second at the start of the season.
EMU clutches a win against NIU:
Thursday in Ypsilanti, Michigan, Northern Illinois took on Eastern Michigan in one of the few games that lasted five sets.
Eastern Michigan, with the help of 18 kills from junior middle blocker Abby Stanford, took the win with victories in sets three, four, and five, pulling off a reverse sweep. The Eagles are now 6-3 in the MAC.
Ball State stands tall against OU:
The Cardinals traveled to Athens on Friday to take on Ohio. The Bobcats put up a great fight against Ball State but ended up losing in five sets.
Both teams were running a 6-2 offense in this game, which is very interesting to see, considering most teams usually run a 5-1. Sophomore outside hitter Kam Hunt of the Bobcats led all scorers with 22 kills.
This game put Ball State over .500, with five wins and four losses.
Central Michigan prevails over NIU:
Northern Illinois’ other road loss this week was handed to them by Central Michigan on Friday. This game was over much quicker than the last one.
The Chippewas swept the Huskies with final scores of 25-21, 25-20, and 25-17. This puts CMU at 7-2 while NIU falls to 1-7.
OU bounces back against Miami.
Following their loss the previous day to Ball State, the Bobcats beat the Red Hawks at home in four sets, only losing in set three.
The statistics of the game were very close, but Ohio held off Miami and advanced to 4-4 in the conference. With the loss, Miami falls to 1-8 on the season.
