Bowling Green volleyball finally has their first home match of the 2025 season as Oakland University comes to the Stroh Center and the Mo and Jon Stansbery Court.
A relatively common non-conference and exhibition foe for the Falcons over the last 20 years, Oakland chases their first win of the season while BG looks to even their 4-5 record and win their first match in front of home fans.
Bowling Green comes off a 2-1 weekend in Chicago at the Loyola Invitational. There they played their fourth straight opponent that received NCAA ranking votes, Indiana. Taking away the matches against ranked opponents, the Falcons sit at 4-1 with only a week left before the start of Mid-American Conference (MAC) play.
BG has a 16-6 all-time record against Oakland, winning eight of 12 matches at home and seven of nine on the road. The four seasons since the teams have met are their longest stretch since 1998, with BG losing four matches to six in the last 10 matchups.
Oakland
The Golden Grizzlies have had a difficult start to their season, a 0-9 record through three weekend invitationals/tournaments. This was predictable by the Horizon League’s ten head coaches, both Oakland and Robert Morris tying for second-to-last in the preseason coaches’ poll. They also did not have a single player selected to the preseason All-League team of returners.
Unlike Bowling Green’s non-conference, head coach Krista Rice’s team has not had any losses to ranked teams; in fact, the Golden Grizzlies have lost to both MAC opponents (Western and Eastern Michigan), DePaul (whom BG beat twice in 2024), as well as six other non-power four teams.
OU has yet to have a hitter reach 100 kills on the season, although it has three players totalling 250+ attacks. Redshirt senior Libby Smith is the only person on the team to have seen the last game played between BG and Oakland and is on pace for the most kills, assists, aces, digs and points in her career. She is the leading Golden Grizzly in both kills and points, second in total blocks.
Blocking is a weakness for Rice’s team, last in the Horizon League by about .30 blocks per set. Oakland averages a full block less than Bowling Green per set, 45 total blocks less than BG on the season.
Bowling Green
The Falcons are still in the process of solving some questions as they prepare for MAC play, especially on the left side of the net. One of the steps in the right direction is junior transfer Avery Hobson, this week’s Mac Offensive Player of the Week, following 47 kills across three matches in Chicago. She had her best match of the season against Stephen F. Austin with 24 kills, a .404 hitting percentage, eight kills and five blocks.
There has been a dogfight for the second outside hitter position with Hobson between Edyta Waclawczyk, Ava Buddelmeyer and Anastasija Bozic throughout the season. Redshirt freshman Marin Dunaway threw herself into the mix after she led BG in kills in only her second career match played, against Loyola Chicago.
BG has also seen a full three-match weekend of senior middle blocker Jessica Andrews, who is still trying to get back into the BG swing after her time with Team Canada in the 2025 World Championships. She has only totaled 15 kills in 16 sets played, but has accumulated 17 blocks and would be third in the MAC in blocks per set (although she has not qualified with sets played yet).
Alex DelPiombo and the Falcons look to get back to .500 with a win over Oakland and continue momentum into their final two non-conference matches and the MAC. The match against the Golden Grizzlies will take place at 6 p.m. in the Stroh Center on Wednesday, Sept. 17. Join Ben Corak and Andrew Smith for the broadcast at 5:45 p.m. on WBGU 88.1 FM, streaming on bgfalconmedia.com.
