By Hampton Crawford
Reporter
The BG volleyball team went one and one on the weekend at home, beating rival Toledo 25-22, 25-20, 21-25, 25-21 on Friday and losing to Ball State 19-25, 14-25, 19-25.
With the win, BG improves to 27-3 all-time against Toledo at home while getting its second Mid-American Conference win of the year. In addition, senior Erica Fullenkamp got her 2,000th career assist and head coach Danijela Tomic got her 199th
career victory.
BG needed a good win and it got that against its rival, making the victory that much sweeter.
“It is always nice to beat Toledo,” Tomic said. “Our fans appreciated it and our team appreciated it … I [just] love how our team fought and how they played with a lot of energy.”
BG had a .263 attack percentage, which ranks second highest of the year for the team, while also out-digging the competition by a 74-70 margin.
In the first set, BG was all tied up with Toledo 17-17. Then Toledo took the lead 20-19. BG rallied to go on a 6-2 run to end the set.
In the second set, Toledo had a quick 7-3 start, but BG came from behind and went up 17-10, coasting to the win. In the third set, BG could not take the lead after only being down 20-19 and Toledo won the set. Then BG tied up the fourth set at 10 and went on a surge scoring 10 of 12 points, inevitably putting the game away.
Fullenkamp finished with 47 assists and 14 digs, while sophomore Jelena Sunjic had 14 kills. Freshman Nicole Slimko and freshman Paige O’Connor added 11 kills.
BG then moved on to Saturday’s contest against Ball State, where they fell in three sets.
“When we executed the game plan that we had, it actually worked,” Tomic said. “We were winning and scoring points, but not all of our players were mindful and disciplined enough to do that. What I didn’t like was our defensive effort. I think that was the difference in this match … That is something that we emphasized and talked about … Unfortunately not everybody was prepared to play this match.”
BG was beat out by Ball State in seven of the eight statistical categories, the worst being in team attack percentage with BG getting .183 percent to the Cardinals’ .389.
“They had some nice kills that you couldn’t defend but we allowed them to score on us with roll shots, score on us with tips, score on us with easy shots [and we can’t have that] so I hope it is a fluke,” Tomic said.
BG was neck-and-neck with the Cardinals in the first set tied at seven, but Ball State took the lead late 21-19 then scored four straight to win the set. In the second, BG lost control early with the score at 9-19, losing the set quickly.
Finally in the third, BG kept it close tied up at 12, but Ball State went on a run sealing the match and
the victory.
The Falcons looked to use the loss against Ball State as a learning experience.
“Obviously when you lose you see your faults,” said sophomore Alyssa Maloney. “But we can also grow on what our strengths were so we keep pushing towards those and keep on fixing what we didn’t work as well on.”
O’Connor had eight kills, while sophomore Madeline Garda had 10 digs in addition to sophomore Alyssa Maloney with six kills, three blocks and
three digs.
With the weekend now over BG moves to 5-17 overall on the season with a 2-8 MAC record.
BG will have its next contest at home against Akron this Friday at 5 p.m. for the Halloween game. Then on Saturday BG hosts Buffalo at 5 p.m. for senior night.
