Falcons Unable To Play Spoiler Role In Four-Set Loss To Ohio

Saturday, November 13

Athens, Ohio

7:00 p.m.

Bowling Green State University

Ohio

November 13, 2010 | Volleyball

By: by Jason Knavel, Assistant Athletic Director for Athletic Communications

Boxscore

Athens, Ohio – The Bowling Green State University volleyball team tried to spoil Ohio University's Senior Day festivities Saturday evening, but the Falcons came up short in a 25-19, 22-25, 25-12, 25-18 on the final day of the regular season.

Ohio had wrapped up the Mid-American Conference Eastern Division title a night earlier but Bowling Green battled the Bobcats in the early going. The first set was tied 14-14 before Ohio pulled away late and the Falcons picked up a victory in the second set to square the match up.

In that second set, Bowling Green used a five-point run early to take a 13-9 lead but Ohio came back to cut the deficit to a single point on a handful of occasions. Each time, the Falcons answered with a clutch point, the last time coming after an Ohio kill made it 23-22 in favor of Bowling Green.

Head coach Denise Van De Walle used a timeout at that point and the Falcons regrouped. Freshmen Paige Penrod and Danielle Tonyan recorded back-to-back kills to even the match at one set apiece.

The Falcons, though, struggled after that, hitting just .014 over the final two sets. Ohio hit over .300 in each of those last two frames and Bowling Green had no answer. The Bobcats also had a remarkable 17.0 blocks in the match.

Paige Penrod led Bowling Green with 17 kills and needs just 13 more to become the first Bowling Green player with 400 in a season since Meghan Mohr had 409 in 2008. Danielle Tonyan added 11 kills and Lindsey Butterfield hit .364 with five kills. Ashley Dunn had a team-best 13 digs and the squad's only service ace of the night. Laura Avila handed out 37 assists and Kari Galen had a team-best three blocks.

Ohio improves to 18-11 on the year and 10-6 in MAC play. Bowling Green ends the regular season with a mark of 8-23 overall and 2-14 in MAC action. The Falcons will be the No. 12 seed for the conference tournament and will play at No. 5 seed Eastern Michigan Tuesday night at 7 p.m. The winning team will advance to the MAC Tournament quarterfinals in Toledo over the weekend.

MAC Tournament First Round
Tuesday, Nov. 16, 7 pm
#12 Bowling Green at #5 Eastern Michigan
#11 Miami at #6 Central Michigan
#10 Buffalo at #7 Akron
#9 Kent State at #8 Toledo
#1 Ball State, #2 Ohio, #3 Western Michigan, and #4 Northern Illinois have byes through the first round