Visiting Napoleon played Bowling Green tight in a Northern Lakes League Cardinal Division volleyball match Thursday, but was swept by the Bobcats, 25-15, 25-20, 25-23, during BG’s Teacher Appreciation Night.
Senior outside hitter Madison Cowan led the Bobcats with 17 kills, three aces, 13 digs and an assist, senior opposite hitter Marley Camera had four kills, a solo block, one block assist, and two digs, and senior setter Molly Ruthenberg had one kill, one ace, eight digs, and 16 assists.
BG sophomore outside hitter Addison Brokaw had nine kills, two solo blocks and five digs, and senior libero Hanna Heinze had 21 digs and four assists.
Entering Tuesday’s play, the Bobcats were two games behind league leader Clay, who was unbeaten in conference play heading into their Tuesday match against Fremont Ross, who had one loss, to Clay.
BG, 11-5 overall and 5-2 in the NLL Cardinal Division, has losses to both Clay and Ross, but with only three league games remaining, it could be a tough task for the Bobcats to win a championship at this point. Fortunately, the Bobcats meet up again with both teams, keeping the possibility within reach.
“We know that there is good competition in the league,” Cowan said. “There is a chance for us to come out on top, but we need to do the work to do that and we know that.”
The Bobcats host Clay again on Senior Night, Oct. 8, and then travel to Fremont Ross to end the regular season on Oct. 10. Senior libero Hanna Heinze, who reached 1,000 career digs earlier this season, can’t wait for the rematch with the Eagles.
“We’re excited to play Clay again,” Heinze said. “We think it can be a different turnout, especially on our homecourt.
“Honestly, I think we are doing really well and we’ve had a few games over about two weeks, where we were, ‘Nah,’ (we didn’t play so well) but then we are building up. We’re looking for more wins and to keep our winning average way higher than our loss average.”
Cowan, who also reached 1,000 career digs and also got her 1,000th career kill this season, says she’s proud of how her teammates have performed, no matter what happens down the stretch.
“It’s my senior season, and I have a group of girls, and whether it’s my last time to be on the court again before starting my college career, I’m super excited,” Cowan said.
Despite sweeping Napoleon for the second time this year, BG coach Deb Mathias said the Bobcats nearly let their guard down Thursday.
“Tonight, I feel like we played a little flat. We kind of lost focus at times,” Mathias said. “We overreached the goals that we had set for the game.
“I think the biggest thing is just cleaning up our game a little bit more and eliminating the unforced errors, because I feel like we had quite a few unforced errors and we let them hang around a little bit too long.”
Senior Maggie Riseborough led the Wildcats with 12 digs, two kills, 15 assists and a block, senior Makayla Kruse had three blocks and four kills, junior Ava Good had five kills, and in the back row senior Lylah Huddle had 11 digs.
The Wildcats had leads in the second and third sets, but could not hold on in either, falling to 3-13 overall and 2-5 in the NLL Cardinal Division.
Napoleon coach Jena Riseborough said her ‘Cats were getting thrown off course by BG’s serves and must do better setting up their top hitters.
“It’s our serve-receive and our passing — our reaction time is not up to par, unfortunately,” coach Riseborough said. “We are going to try and keep working on different things to try and improve that.”
BG was coming off a sweep over NLL cross-divisional foe Findlay on Tuesday, but had to refocus to take down the Wildcats, especially in the third set.
Napoleon junior Faith Rubinstein and senior Hannah Nagel teamed up for block assists, and then Rubinstein had two successive kills to bring the Wildcats to within one, 23-22, in the third set, seeking to force a fourth.
However, Cowen nailed a cross-court kill and then scored match point on another kill to end the threat.
Mathias said the Wildcats did a good of forcing the Bobcats to the net, and then hit deep shots that BG was unable to defend.
“Our serve-receive was really good tonight, our defense was really good, but again I feel like we struggled a little bit more,” Mathias said.
“They were really trying to push the corners and we kind of struggled in the corners a little bit and got caught too tight to the net instead of staying deep, and then some of the unforced errors on the serves, hitting the ball out and stuff like that.”
Napoleon opened the middle set on a block by Kruse and two kills by sophomore Hannah Miller to take an early 3-1 lead, but BG senior middle blocker Tara Hastings and Camera teamed for block assists to put the Bobcats up 11-10, and BG never trailed again.
The first set was out of reach in a hurry as BG scored five straight points on three kills by Cowan, a kill Camera, and block assists by Camera and junior middle blocker Julia Strum to pull away, 19-8, and the Bobcats never looked back.
