Bowling Green State volleyball won the Mid-American Conference Tournament championship on Tuesday, beating Ball State in five sets, 23-25, 25-23, 25-23, 23-25, 15-9.
The win advances the Falcons to the program’s fourth NCAA Tournament appearance, the last of which will be in the 2020-21 season.
The Falcons will continue their season with the NCAA tournament starting December 1st. The NCAA Selection Show takes place on Sunday at 7:30 PM on ESPNU.
The Falcons battled in a close first set to the Cardinals before winning both the second and third sets.
The Cardinals won the fourth set and took the fifth, but the Falcons won 15-9. The first four sets ended with scores of 25-23 respectively.
The Falcons were led by MAC Tournament MVP Rollin Hovey, a 6-foot freshman outfield hitter. Hovey scored his first 20 kills of the season at BGSU his match, scoring 22 and achieving his third triple-double of the season with 16 assists and 11 digs.
Hovey is one of only 10 players in the country to have three or more triple-doubles, and one of two freshmen.
Hovey also added seven blocks to the stats line to match a career high. Hovey also attempted a team-high 49 offenses, setting a new career high for him.
6-0 senior outside hitter Petra Indorova added a double-double and four aces, while senior Ribery Jeliants Torres dug 33 times, both of which were All-Tournament selections. rice field.
Indrova finished the game with 14 kills and 15 digs for her 12th double-double of the season.
With 14 kills, Indrova now has a career total of 1,336, eighth in program history for career kills. Indrova recorded 43 total attacks, her sixth to reach her 3,590 career attacks to date.
It was Torres’ 13th game with 20 or more digs this season. Torres added 6 assists and 1 ace to his stat line. The 33 digs took Torres’ season total to 570, 1 placing him eighth all-time for digging in a season.
BGSU junior setter Jayden Waltz also added a double-double to propel the Falcons to their second MAC Tournament Championship in the past three seasons.
Waltz recorded his 10th double-double of the season, finished with a team-high 32 assists and completed a season-high 12 digs.
After losing the first set by two points, the second set didn’t go well for BGSU either. His 2-0 spurt by the Cardinals allowed them to advance 22-20 and force a BGSU timeout.
The Falcons scored the next two points from timeouts to tie the score at 22-22 and prompt a timeout off the ball.
The Falcons were able to keep the momentum going and take a 25-23 sets win thanks to Hobie’s block and a 6-1 junior middle blocker, Alexis Metil.
In the third, a Hobie kill won the Falcons set 25-23. In the fourth set, the Falcons took the first two-point lead of the set at 11-9 before rolling to a 3-0 lead and forcing a ball state timeout at 12-9.
The Cardinals took the lead and narrowed the gap to 18-17, but two kills by sophomore outside hitter Cat Mandry (Perrysburg) in BGSU 6-0 pushed BGSU’s advantage back to 20-17.
The Falcons extended it to a 4-1 run, making Core 22-18 and forcing a ball-state timeout. Ball State scored in a row of six to go up 24-22. BGSU points followed before Ball State forced the fifth set at 25-23.
The Falcons scored the first three points to start the fifth set and quickly took a 3-0 advantage.
Ball State narrowed the gap to 7-6, but BGSU 6-1 sophomore outside hitter Mia Tyler scored a kill for the Falcons to bring the media timeout to BGSU’s 8-6 lead. I saw you switch sides.
The Falcons scored two more points to push the run to 3-0 and prompt a ball-state timeout with a score of 10-6 BGSU.
The Falcons’ lead extended to 12-7 before another timeout from the Cardinals. Ball State pushed in the closing stages, but the Falcons stayed strong for his 15-9 set, game and championship victory.
Metil had a team-high and career-high eight block assists in the game. A 6-4 freshman middleweight, her blocker Jessica Andrews was a close second with her seven wins.
Tyler and Mandry both had double-digit kills in their matches, with 12 and 11 respectively. In the match, the Falcons had his four players achieve his double-digit kills.
5-10 senior outside hitter Kaitlin Meyer (Eastwood) became the first player in program history to reach the milestone by surpassing 5,000 career offensive attempts on her first swing of the game.
