The University of Akron Athletics
University of Akron
Bowling Green
Bowling Green shuts down Volleyball, 3-0
September 28 | Women's Volleyball
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AKRON, Ohio – Tina Dimitrijevs exceeded 900 career kills with a team-high 14 on Friday night, but it was not enough to navigate Akron past Bowling Green's three offensive roadblocks in a 3-0 loss at Rhodes Arena.
BGSU's strong trio of junior outside hitters, Lindsey Butterfield, Paige Penrod and Danielle Tonyan, combined for 41 of the Falcons' 52 team kills as they out-hit the Zips .330 to .185. Akron saw waves of momentum sparked by the play of its middle blockers at the net, but in the end the adaptable Bowling Green offense proved to be too diverse.
The first set was the most hotly contested of the night, featuring 12 tie scores and seven lead changes. Neither team exhibited a clear advantage until Akron went up by two points at 14-12 on a kill from Dimitrijevs.
Bowling Green answered with four consecutive points to take its own two-point lead, but the Zips evened the score again at 16. The Falcons scored on the next three plays to force an Akron timeout.
Coming out of the huddle, the Zips regained composure but still found themselves down by four at the 21-17 mark. Alex Cocklin delivered a huge solo block, sandwiched between two dynamic kills from Paiton Twitty to bring Akron within one at 21-20, and it would be BGSU's turn to call a break in the action.
The set only looked up for the Zips from there, when Morgan Kuhn served up an ace on the next play and UA forced the Falcons into two errors to reclaim the advantage at 23-21.
Akron had its sights on set point on two consecutive plays after another kill from Twitty, but Bowling Green was able to shift the energy and the score in its favor with an ace and back-to-back kills from Butterfield to successfully snatch the set right out from under the Zips by a 26-24 final.
As a team, UA only posted one attack error in the entire second set, and the Zips were more accurate on the attack than the Falcons with a .341 to .326 percentage, comparatively. Mary Delich teamed with Dimitrijevs for two stellar second set performances and four kills apiece.
Still, the last two sets of the evening were a game of catch-up and the Zips were unable to keep the pace, falling 25-20 and 25-18. UA had windows of opportunity midway through each period, but coming out of timeouts the Zips could not find their footing.
Defensively, Chelsea Harvey and Jill Paluch were both solid in the back row for Akron, putting up 10 and 15 digs. Morgan Kuhn connected on 25 assists, nearly half of which came in the second set.
The Zips will get another crack at the chance to lock up the program's 700th win in school history Saturday evening when Miami (5-11, 0-3) comes to town. The RedHawks were shutout at Buffalo on Friday. First serve is set for 5 p.m. ET at Rhodes Arena.
