HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. — The Bowling Green State University volleyball team narrowly missed their first win in program history against Ohio State, going five sets with the No. 14 Buckeyes on Saturday.
The Falcons took the second and third sets in the match before Ohio State surged in the fourth to force a fifth set, taking the match there. The 25-20, 15-25, 23-25, 25-16, 15-7 loss moves BGSU to 1-1 on the young season.
For the Falcons, freshman Amanda Otten continued her stellar first weekend as a Falcon, missing a triple-double by one block. Otten finished with a team-high 23 assists, 14 kills and nine blocks.
Kat Mandly (Perrysburg) added a double-double with a team-high 15 kills and 10 digs while Jaden Walz added another double-double, finishing with 19 assists and 11 digs.
Otten started the match by landing an ace for the Falcons, but the Buckeyes quickly responded with a 4-0 run to take an early 4-1 advantage.
Later in the set, the Falcons utilized a 3-0 burst to knot the first set up at 8-8 in the early running, starting a back-and-forth trading of points.
The ties continued to 12-12 before a 3-0 run for Ohio State pushed their lead to 15-12 at the media timeout.
The Falcons were able to tally five of six points later in the set to tie the score once again, this time at 18-18.
Ohio State recorded a point to move in front 19-18, but back-to-back points for BGSU pushed Bowling Green to the lead, 20-19, and forced a timeout from the Buckeyes.
OSU registered the next three points out of the timeout to reclaim the lead at 22-20 to force a timeout, this time from the BGSU bench.
The run continued for Ohio State through the timeout, tallying six straight points to close out the set 25-20.
In the second set, Ohio State took an early lead, but a 4-0 run for the Orange and Brown, including two Mandly aces, pushed BGSU in front 8-6.
Ohio State responded with a 3-0 run to reclaim their lead at 9-8, but another pair of points for Bowling Green swung the score back to the Falcons, 10-9.
BGSU put together another 3-0 run to break a tie, going into the media timeout up 15-12.
The Falcons carried the momentum through the timeout and surged forward with a late 4-0 run to extend the lead to 22-15.
The run continued through the timeout for the Falcons, taking the set 25-15 with a 7-0 stretch to close it out.
The Buckeyes came out swinging in the third set, jumping out to a 5-1 lead to force an early BGSU timeout.
Bowling Green battled back, but a 4-0 run for Ohio State pushed their advantage to 11-5.
The Falcons used a 5-0 run, interrupted by an Ohio State timeout, to narrow the gap to 12-11. The Buckeyes pushed their lead back to 16-12 to force a timeout for the Bowling Green bench.
A 6-0 run for the Falcons granted BGSU the lead, 18-16, and forced a timeout from the Buckeyes.
Ohio State responded with a 4-0 run to reclaim the lead at 20-19, but the Falcons battled back to knot it up at 21-21.
The two teams traded points before Amanda Otten and Mia Tyler landed back-to-back kills to snag the set 25-23 to go up 2-1 for the match.
The fourth set began similarly to the third with Ohio State using a 3-0 run to take a 5-2 lead and force an early timeout.
The Falcons closed the gap to one, but the Buckeyes regained their advantage at 11-6 followed the second BGSU timeout of the set.
Ohio State maintained their advantage to take the fourth set 25-16 and force a fifth.
The fifth set began close with the first stoppage coming with a BGSU timeout with the score at 7-4.
Coming out of the timeout, the Falcons tallied two straight points to narrow the gap to 7-6.
A 3-0 run later in the set increased the Ohio State advantage back to 11-7 and forced the second BGSU timeout of the set.
The run continued through the timeout for the Buckeyes, closing out a 15-7 set score to take the match.
Otten tallied her first collegiate double-double, stuffing the stat sheet for the second straight match. Otten recorded a team-high 23 assists while adding 14 kills, with a .481 hitting percentage, five block assists, four solo blocks, two aces and two digs.
Mandly led the team in kills, landing 15 in the match, while adding 10 digs for her first double-double. Mandly also landed a career-high and team-high three aces for the Falcons.
Jaden Walz contributed a double-double to the BGSU effort with 19 assists to go along with 11 digs.
Lauryn Hovey reached double-digit kills for BGSU with 12 kills.
Freshman Gwen Crull made her first career start for BGSU, landing three kills and three block assists.
