By Yaneek Smith
Special to the Sentinel-Tribune
OREGON — It was one of those quintessential matches where the final score was much closer than how competitive it really was.
Bowling Green lost, 3-0 (25-17, 25-22, 25-23) to Clay on Tuesday in Northern Lakes League Cardinal Division action, but at least the Bobcats made the Eagles sweat for it.
BG, which dropped to 7-2 and 3-1 in the Cardinal Division with the loss, had leads in each set, but Clay took control and held on when it mattered most.
In the third set, BG led, 20-19, but the Eagles, behind two kills — one by Leah Hazuda — a bad Bobcat serve, and an ace by Jadyn Kennedy, scored four consecutive points to take a 23-20 lead.
The teams traded points, and an unforced Clay error and a kill by BG’s Addison Brokaw cut the deficit to 24-23.
But a kill by Clay sophomore Emelia Goetz ended the match.
BG coach Deb Mathias knew that trying to find a way to beat Clay was going to be difficult.
“Both teams are really good teams, and we battled all the way through. We just came up a little short on a few,” Mathias said. “We had some unforced errors that we just should have been able to clean up, and we struggled with executing. We struggled with finishing tonight. We knew this was going to be tough. They have a solid offense and defense.”
The second set saw the Bobcats race out to a 5-1 lead before the Eagles rallied to tie the score, 6-6. It was later 9-9, but BG held a 15-12 lead after a kill by Brokaw.
However, Clay (7-0, 4-0) tied the score at 15-15 after kills by Goetz and Hayden Rodriguez and an ace by Natalie Karrick, and the score was also tied at 16-16 and 20-20. The Eagles took the lead for good at 21-20 on a kill by Lilly Collins and slowly pulled away from there, winning, 25-22.
“We have to have that winning mentality and relentless pursuit,” said Mathias. “We have to put everything together and everyone has to do the little things, and we struggled with that. We struggled with the little things like communication. We’ve got to be able to execute and finish.”
The first set was won by Clay in convincing fashion, 25-17. The Eagles took the lead for good at 7-6 after an ace by Karrick. BG hung around, trailing by just two points, 17-15, after an unforced error by Clay. But Maddie Franke, who finished with 12 kills, had two kills as the Eagles won seven of the next nine points, which was punctuated by Karrick with the set-winning kill.
Cullen led the Bobcats with 12 kills and 20 digs while Brokaw had six kills and five digs. Hannah Yarger finished with 24 digs and Molly Ruthenberg had four digs and 10 assists.
For Clay, Goetz led the team with 15 kills, Karrick had 10 kills, Rodriguez finished with 34 assists and Jadyn Kennedy had 12 digs.
