In a pivotal match with Mid-American Conference Tournament implications, Ohio (7-11, 3-4 MAC) failed to pull out a win against Ball State (11-8, 4-4 MAC), losing 3-2.
Ohio coach Geoff Carlston echoed one consistent issue that plagued the team throughout its Friday night performance: defense.
“The bottom line is we didn’t play great defense,” Carlston said. “That’s our focus … having a little more grit and grind when it comes to defense.”
Despite the concerns, Ohio won its first set handily. Behind sophomores Kam Hunt and Kendall Hickey at the service line, the Bobcats would take an 8-4 advantage. Over the early stretch, junior Anna Kharchynska would record four kills.
Ohio wouldn’t look back, building its lead to 23-15, with a 5-0 stretch that included rare kills from Hickey and junior Chariti McKellar. Carlston would call his first timeout of the match as Ohio would allow Ball State to string together some late points, but ultimately, Ohio’s lead was too great, and the first set would end 25-19.
As in previous matches for the Bobcats, however, the best play came early, and Ohio would start to crumble in the second set. Ohio’s first and only lead of the set came at 2-1, with kills from graduate student Elizabeth Hoerlein and freshman Darbi Ricketts.
Ball State would quickly rattle off a 5-0 run behind junior Katie Egenolf, and wouldn’t concede a lead until late in the fourth set. The Cardinals, who at this point this season have only truly employed one setter, would get great production from two against Ohio; senior Megan Wielonski and Lindsey Green combined for 48 assists, just one behind the Bobcat total.
“Ball State’s one of the better passing teams in the country,” Carlston said. “We know that, I just don’t think we stressed them enough.”
The second set would end 25-16 and the third set would end with even fewer points from the Bobcats, setting the team back 2-1 after a 25-12 performance.
In the third, Ohio allowed Ball State to get off to a 5-0 start before finally scoring its first point on a kill from Hunt, one of her 22 on the night. Struggles putting together runs would be what plagued Ohio in this set; however, as the team only managed to score 2 consecutive points once, off a service error from Ball State and another kill from Hunt.
To this point in the game, Ohio’s defense was just porous, and its offense wasn’t helping much either, struggling to find an answer to poor setting as the team was often playing out of position. Freshman Lexi Grissett even saw playing time as a setter in the absence of sophomore Leah Shumate, as Ohio’s offense would struggle to connect.
In the second and third sets, 28 of Ball State’s 50 points would be on kills, showing Ohio’s struggles to create solid return opportunities and get the ball off the floor.
The fourth showed more promise. Once again, the Cardinals built an early 5-1 lead and would maintain an advantage despite a more potent offense from Ohio, who played far more aggressively at the service line.
“(Serving tougher) is something we’ve been working on, and continue to work on,” Carlston said. “They’re too good of an offensive team to not challenge them with your serve.”
Ohio would stay within range of Ball State throughout the fourth, and fittingly, would take its first meaningful lead since the first set ended at 23-22 on a Hunt service ace. Ball State would get out a single point before the set ended 25-23, tying the match up 2-2.
The fifth and final set would be the most irritating one for the Bocbats and Carlston as a near 10-minute stoppage of play occurred in the match’s final stretch due to an officiating mistake in tracking rotations.
“It’s just silly, just frustrating as a sport that’s trying to grow to have that kind of mistake,” Carlston said. “It’s tough to play volleyball after a 10-minute break because someone wrote the wrong number down … that shouldn’t happen, it should never happen.”
The fifth set would finish 15-11 in favor of Ball State, setting Ohio up to make improvements in its next game against Miami. The team will be back in The Convo at 4 p.m. Saturday for the Battle of the Bricks.
