Box Score
ALLIANCE, Ohio – The Otterbein University women's volleyball team tallied an impressive three-set win at league-leading University of Mount Union Saturday, winning 25-16, 25-23, 25-20.
The Cardinals, ranked No. 17 in the latest national poll, improve to 23-6 on the season and 5-2 in Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) play with the win. It was the first meeting between the two schools since Otterbein's four-set victory in last year's OAC Tournament Championship.
Mount Union, ranked No. 9 nationally, suffers its first OAC loss of the season in dropping to 25-4 this fall and 6-1 against the league.
"The win means a lot in terms of bouncing back from a few recent struggles we've endured," head coach Monica McDonald explained. "It may not change anything with the league standings, but I think we proved a little bit to ourselves today. We executed the game plan and made the proper adjustments throughout the match."
Otterbein stormed out to a 25-16 win in the first set, and used a 10-5 run in the middle of the second frame to take control and ultimately seize the 2-0 lead.
Otterbein grabbed an early 10-6 lead to begin the third, but the host Raiders battled back to eventually tie the set at 15-15, 16-16 and 17-17. The Cards kicked it into gear, however, winning eight of the final 11 points en route to victory.
Otterbein hit .267 as a team in the match, led by 10 kills and a .375 hitting percentage from middle Kim Barker. Annie Juenger roped off a match-high 13 kills while Kendel Kellogg had seven.
Setter Tabatha Piper handed out 28 assists, bringing her season total to 974 and within just 50 of the school's all-time record. Libero Emily Caldwell had a match-best 14 digs for the Cardinal defense, which forced Mount Union into hitting just .172 for the day.
Taylor Webb paced the Purple Raider offense with eight kills, and just two errors, on 19 total attempts. Nicole Snyder, the reigning OAC Player of the Year, hit just .100 after five kills and three misfires on 20 attacks.
"I was proud of our effort back at the service line today," McDonald said. "We served aggressively and really kept them out of their system. Their attackers didn't get too many great sets because we had them a little out of sync."
Otterbein has a pair of home matches next week to finish out the regular season, hosting Marietta College Tuesday evening and Capital University Saturday morning at 11 a.m. McDonald knows that her team must remain focused heading down the stretch and into the postseason.
"We need to make sure we prepare properly for the next two matches and finish conference play on a strong note," she said. "Marietta is much improved this year and Capital just beat Marietta, so both teams will pose a challenge. We still just need to take things one match at a time."
