Sept. 25, 2015
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Score: Ohio 3, Bowling Green 0 (25-21, 25-13, 25-19)
Location: Athens, Ohio (Convocation Center)
Record: Ohio 11-3 (1-0 MAC), Bowling Green 4-10 (0-1 MAC)
Short Story: The Ohio volleyball team (11-3, 1-0 MAC) tallied its first Mid-American Conference victory of the season with a 3-0 (25-21, 25-13, 25-19) sweep of Bowling Green (4-10, 0-1 MAC) on Friday (Sept. 25) at the Convocation Center.
THE BASICS
• Ohio attacked at a .237 pace while limiting Bowling Green to a .098 hitting percentage.
• Junior outside hitter/libero Mallory Salis (Oak Lawn, Ill.) led the match with 13 kills and recorded a double-double with 11 digs. She also contributed a match-high four service aces.
• Sophomore outside hitter Jaime Kosiorek (Chagrin Falls, Ohio) recorded nine kills, leaving her just short of a double-double after notching 11 digs. She also added a service ace and a block assist.
• Senior setter Abby Gilleland (Bull Valley, Ill.) tallied a match-high 31 assists in addition to nine digs and seven kills. She also recorded two assisted blocks and two service aces.
• Senior middle blocker Karin Bull (Bloomington, Minn.) paced the attack from the middle with eight kills while only having one attacking error and a match-high .412 hitting percentage. She also notched an assist, a dig, and a block assist.
• Senior middle blocker/outside hitter Shelby Walker (Bradenton, Fla.) recorded four kills and two block assists. She also added a dig.
• Freshman libero Erica Walker (Wheaton, Ill.) tied for the match lead with 18 digs to go along with two assists and a service ace.
• Senior libero Meredith Ashy (Louisville, Ky.) compiled nine digs to go along with five assists and a service ace.
• Junior outside hitter Jelena Sunjic led Bowling Green with 11 kills and added five digs. She also tallied two total blocks (one solo, one assisted).
• Sophomore outside hitter Nicole Slimko added eight kills and three total blocks (one solo, two assisted) for the Falcons while junior middle blocker Alyssa Maloney finished with five kills, four digs, two block assists and a service ace.
• Sophomore setter Katie Scholten led Bowling Green with 25 assists and chipped a kill and five digs.
• Freshman libero/defensive specialist Kallie Seimet totaled 18 digs to tie Erica Walker for the match lead. She also recorded a kill and an assist for the Falcons. Junior libero/defensive specialist Madeline Garda also finished with double-digit digs, recording 10.
HOW IT HAPPENED
• Bowling Green jumped out to a 15-6 lead midway through the first set. The Bobcats then grabbed 10 of the next 12 points -- including three aces from Salis to knot up the match at 16-all. Ohio and Bowling Green traded points before a Salis kill gave the Bobcats their first lead of the set at 21-20. Two points later, another Salis kill gave Ohio the lead for good. The Bobcats turned to Salis one more time in the set, as she capped off the 25-21 victory with her eighth kill of the set.
• The Bobcats continued the momentum into the second set, jumping out to a 6-2 lead early on. The teams traded blows to make it 12-8 midway through set two. With Gilleland on the service stripe, Ohio proceeded to go a 5-0 surge to gain control of the set at 18-9 second set. Gilleland recorded two service aces during the run. Down the stretch, the Bobcats turned to a variety of players -- including freshman outside hitter Simone Miller (Kalamazoo, Mich.) who recorded her first career kill. Bull finished off the second set, 25-13, with her third kill of the frame.
• Ohio jumped out to an early 7-1 edge in the third set and never relinquished the lead en route to a six-point victory that sealed the match win. Kosiorek tallied five kills in the set while Bull added four kills. Salis tallied eight digs in the set.
BEYOND THE BOX SCORE
• The Bobcats have now won 25 straight MAC regular season matches.
• Ohio improved to 17-17 (.500) all-time in conference openers. The Bobcats have won 15 of their last 18 opening MAC matches -- including 13 of the last 14.
• The Bobcats are now 33-30 (.524) all-time against the Falcons and have taken each of the last six meetings.
• Salis tallied double-digit kills for the third time in the last four matches and sixth time in her career. She posted her fourth career double-double. Salis recorded double-digit digs for the seventh time this year and 23rd time in her career.
• Gilleland has now recorded double-digit assists 106 times in her career -- including all 14 matches in 2015.
• Erica Walker's 18 digs matched her career high. She achieved double-digit for the fifth time this year and third match in a row.
• Kosiorek posted double-digit digs for the seventh time this year.
QUOTABLE
"They (Salis and Gilleland) played so hard, and that's the thing about those two kids, is whether they're having a great game or not a great game, their work ethic, their effort is off the charts. It was like that tonight. I can't count how many times Mal and Abby were flying around the court tonight, or off the court, or onto the scorers table, or whatever else it takes to give us the chance to win the point." - Second-year head coach Deane Webb
"We came in with a 0-0 start, and that was our mentality. Preseason's over with, now we have MAC season. We were very excited to get that started." - Sophomore outside hitter/libero Mallory Salis
"That's something we've been utilizing a lot, moving people around in different lineups, knowing when we can attack things when we want to be a more defensive team versus when we want to be more offensive. I think that's one thing that we're still kind of doing, fluctuating between two different lineups, three different lineups, mixing in some different servers, different patterns in our passing and things like that. It helps us in terms of, we know what we need to do and what is putting the best lineup out there for us, but we're also taking the other team into consideration with what we need to do to defend them." - Senior setter Abby Gilleland
WHAT'S NEXT
Ohio battles Miami (9-5, 1-0 MAC) on Saturday (Sept. 26) in a 7 p.m. ET 'Battle of the Bricks' showdown at the Convo. The match has been designated as a Green Out, with fans encouraged to wear their Bobcat green to the Convo. The contest will feature both a pregame student tailgate and a postgame autograph session.
The RedHawks opened MAC play with a 3-2 (16-25, 25-22, 25-23, 22-25, 15-9) triumph at Kent State on Friday.
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