Oct. 31, 2009
Final Stats
ATHENS, Ohio - Ellen Herman tied a season-high 26 kills and became Ohio's all-time points leader as Ohio volleyball grounded Eastern Michigan 3-1 (22-25, 25-18, 25-19, 25-12) on the road late Saturday afternoon.
With the win, Ohio improved to 19-5 overall and 11-1 in Mid-American Conference play. Herman (Toledo, Ohio) tallied 28.5 points on the day to move past Melissa Griffin (2004-07) in the top spot on both Ohio's career points list and career rally-scoring points list.
"She is scoring a lot of points, from serving, blocking and attacking," Ohio coach Ryan Theis said of Herman. "She's playing like an All-American, and when we get everyone contributing like that, we're a tough team to stop."
Herman hit a blistering .471 on 51 total attacks with just two errors and also picked up her ninth double-double of the season with 10 digs. As a unit, the `Cats hit .394 for the match. Sue Jacobi (Louisville, Ky.) tallied 13 kills on .409 hitting, while Meghan Simons (Lancaster, Ohio) chipped in 11 kills and Katie Post (Steamwood, Ill.) had 10. Michelle Jantsch (Mission Hills, Kan.) picked up 51 assists. Sarah Petrulis (Westlake, Ohio) led the Ohio defense with 17 digs, while Simons and Jantsch each tallied three blocks at the net.
"Game one, we gave away too many points and made too many errors, while EMU certainly did a nice job executing," Theis said. "From there, we made significantly less errors and got into a groove the rest of the way."
Both sides came out swinging out of the gates and went back and forth at one another. The Eagles (4-24, 3-9 MAC) pulled ahead by two midway through the set and held on the rest of the way as they hit .433 for the stanza to take the win, 25-22.
The `Cats rebounded strongly in the second set and hit .438 with just three errors, while limiting EMU to just .120 hitting to roll to the 25-18 win. Ohio continued its strong play through the third set and hit .424 to come away with the set. Set three was all `Cats as the Green and White hit .550 with just two errors and limited the Eagles to just a .143 to seal off the win.
Ohio will return home for its final home matches of the regular season against Buffalo and Akron, respectively, next weekend. The `Cats will take on the Bulls Friday, with first serve set for 7 p.m. ET.
