The fifth straight win for the Ball State women's volleyball team was a big one, as it topped league-leading Northern Illinois 3-1 (25-19, 25-18, 23-25, 25-15) Friday evening at Victor E. Court.
"We have been really focused on earning points and staying consistent, and I feel like the runs of points tonight showed that," head coach Kelli Miller Phillips said. "NIU does not give up a lot of free points and we knew we would have to play clean and work hard for every point. I liked our focus, but we are going to have to reset and do it again tomorrow."
The Cardinals (13-6; 5-2 Mid-American Conference) used a 10-4 run to close the opening set and an 11-3 run to end the second. After the Huskies (13-5; 6-2 MAC) battled to win the third set, Ball State broke a 6-6 tie in the fourth with a 9-2 run and never looked back.
BSU forced the Huskies to use both of its fourth-set timeouts during the run and pulled ahead 19-10 before winning the set on back-to-back blasts from junior outside Cait Snyder. They were two of her match-high 17 kills and gave her double digit kills in three of Ball State's last for matches.
Senior opposite Natalie Mitchem also had a strong night, registering 15 kills on 34 swings with no errors for a .441 rate of success. She has registered double digit kills and no attack errors in two of BSU's last three matches.
Rounding out Ball State's top attackers was senior outside Natalie Risi with 13 kills to go along with 13 digs for her ninth double-double of the season. She also served up one of BSU's four aces.
"Our pins definitely stepped up for us tonight when out middles struggled offensively," Phillips said. "I do think our middles found some rhythm in the fourth set which really helped us separate at the end."
From the middle, senior Marie Plitt finished the night with eight kills, while Lauren Gilliland earned eight of her own to go along with a team-high four total blocks.
Senior libero Maggie Huber turned in her best match of the season, leading all players with a season-high 30 digs. She was also perfect in reception in 20 attempts.
"Maggie was all over the court tonight," Phillips added. "She made a ton of big digs, along with some great pursuit hustle plays that not only kept rallies alive, but also kept momentum on our side."
Rounding out Ball State's top contributors was sophomore setter Megan Wielonski who earned her 13th double-double of the season with 54 assists and 16 digs. She ran the offense to a .246 (64-18-187) rate of success and served up an ace.
Katie Jablonski led the NIU offense with 15 kills, while Francesca Bertucci earned a team-high 25 digs. BSU limited the Huskies to a .166 (52-21-187) attack percentage, its lowest attack percentage of the season.
Ball State and Northern Illinois will square off again Saturday afternoon at Victor E. Court, this time with a 3 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. CT first serve.
Original source can be found here.
Alerts Sign-up