Sports
Ohio Volleyball gets a revenge win in another five set battle against the Buffalo Bulls
By: Payton Brooker
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — The Ohio Volleyball team (11-8) came back to the Convocation Center looking for vengeance against the Buffalo Bulls (11-10).
The Bulls made the contest a close game with Buffalo pulling ahead in the fifth set 15-12 in the first matchup. And on the second, the close games between the two wouldn’t stop.
The Bobcats went back and forth with the Bulls going all the way to the fifth set for the second time this series. In that set, the two teams weren’t done pulling an ace out of the hat as they would go all the way to a score of 19-19 before the Bobcats took over.
With a game winning kill by Anna Kharchynska, the Bobcats managed to edge by the Bulls in this very close 3-2 set win coming down right to the wire. This win would tie this series up at a game a piece.
The Bobcats left it all on the court with key players getting kills and digs at the proper moments.
Caitlin O’Farrell was the kills leader for the Bobcats scoring 20 on the evening.
Junior Sam Steele added on to her dig total with 25. For Paker Kwiatkowski, she was on a tear on this night and set a new career high with 65 assists.
Another impressive night on the court came from sophomore Caroline Clippard, who also set a new season high in kills with 17. Clippard was determined during the final set to work as a team to go away as a winner.
“Going into the fifth set, one our biggest goals was to be aggressive,” she said. “I think that it is certainty we did well, we had each other’s back and we felt it from the beginning that we were going to win that game.”
Head coach Geoff Carlston was proud for what the team learned from these past two games against Buffalo and how the team will continue to use the skills picked up to progress forward towards the rest of the season.
“I think Buffalo made us better,” Carlston said. “They have some players that are international and really smart. I thought that our team did a lot of really good things that we can put in our back pocket and use it down the road when we need it”.
With this win, the Bobcats will improve to 5-3 in MAC play.
The Bobcats will have now a three-game road stretch in front of them. First, they take on the Kent State Golden Flashes on Oct 18, then will travel to Akron to take on the Zips in a two-game series starting on Oct. 21 and 22.