Sports
Volleyball: Ohio beats Central Michigan in five sets
By: Colleen O'Morrow
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Through long volleys, strong aces and hard hits, Ohio and Central Michigan went five sets, and the ‘Cats defeated the Chippewas 25-23, 24-26, 18-25, 25-15, 15-10.
After the match against Central Michigan, Ohio is 11-3 in the Mid-American Conference. The win keeps the ‘Cats in the number four spot in the MAC.
The first set began with the Chippewas taking the lead but the Cats came back to tie at 10-10. Long volleys between the teams made the match appear to be endless but strong kills from the Bobcats ended the first set in Ohio’s favor, 25-23. Though the Chippewas appeared to have the edge on paper through kill stats, Ohio’s strong blocking and serving aided it in winning the match.
The second set kicked off for the ‘Cats with a block from Lexie Harnett but the Chippewas were quick to take the lead with consistent kills. The second set ended at 26-24 which took the momentum from the ‘Cats for the next set.
Hit after hit, Central Michigan had control of the third set; the last four straight points in the game were from the Chippewas’ hits. The ‘Cats were finally able to get the motivation back in the fourth set and make solid kills. Ohio coach Ryan Theis believes the fourth set was the most important for Ohio.
“Central Michigan is a high energy team, they use that to their advantage,” Theis said. “I thought that any point we could get a big enough lead, we could ride into another set and that happened in set four; what happened in four led us into winning in five.”
The fourth set was ended with a score of 25-15 and the ‘Cats took home the fifth set 15-10. Ohio finished with 14 blocks.
Ohio has played four games in the past seven days; two of those being five-set matches.
“The key is to get a good rest tonight, not staying up too late like college kids like to do and hopefully we can fit that in and be a little bit rested tomorrow,” Theis said.
The Bobcats play Buffalo and Akron this coming weekend. The team has already played and beaten both Buffalo (3-1) and Akron (3-0) this season.