Box Score

WESTERVILLE, Ohio – The Cardinal volleyball team was dealt a setback within Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) play Tuesday evening, falling to a red-hot Ohio Northern University team inside the Rike Center.

Otterbein, back at home for the first time in over a month, suffered a loss by scores of 17-25, 12-25, 20-25 and now sits with an 11-7 record on the year.

The Cards, 1-2 against the OAC, will host Rose-Hulman Friday night and then remain inside the Rike Center come Saturday as part of a quad-match with Rose Hulman, Muskingum and Thomas More. See full schedule of matches by clicking HERE.

Ohio Northern, now winners of nine-straight matches, upped its mark to 17-3 on the season and 2-0 within the league as a result of the victory. The Polar Bears led throughout almost the entire first set, opening a five-point cushion midway through en route to an eventual early lead.

The Cards held a brief 5-3 advantage to begin the second before ONU climbed back, tying the set at 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 before embarking on a 15-2 scoring run to culminate the frame.

Otterbein fought until the end, rallying out of a 12-5 deficit in the third to ultimately make it a one-point set towards crunch time. The Polar Bears would prevail, using two errors by the Cardinals to widen the gap to 23-20 and hang on.

Junior middle Morgan Lowenkamp tied for a match-best 11 kills, only committing three errors over 26 attempts to post a .308 percentage. Three other Cardinals tallied five kills each.

ONU hit a solid .283 as a group compared to just .11 for Otterbein. The Polar Bears received 11 kills from outside hitter Sydney Fecko, who hit .360 in the contest, and also got a 9-2-13 offensive line from Claire Heitkamp. All-American setter Ashley Borchers controlled things at the net with 41 assists.