WESTERVILLE — The Otterbein volleyball team defeated Mount Union 3-1 in the Ohio Athletic Conference Tournament semifinals on Thursday night. The Cardinals won 25-17, 25-20, 16-25, 26-24, extending their current winning streak to six matches and advancing to play at top-seeded No. 8 Marietta in Saturday's championship game.

The Basics

• Records: Otterbein (20-8 overall), Mount Union (19-10 overall)
• Venue: Rike Center - Westerville, Ohio
• Otterbein, the two-time defending champion, is the No. 2 seed in the tournament, and Mount Union is the No. 3 seed. The Cardinals received a first-round bye, while the Purple Raiders defeated sixth-seeded Muskingum 3-2 in Tuesday's first-round game.
• Marietta defeated fourth-seeded John Carroll 3-0 in Thursday's other semifinal game. The tournament champion receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament.
• OAC Tournament page

Otterbein Stat Leaders

• Four Cardinals posted double-digit kills in the match. Senior Kennedy Hoffman led the way with 16 to go with 15 from sophomore Lexi Scott, 12 from freshman Emerson Baum and 10 from senior Kristen Scherger.
• Three Cardinals tallied double-digit digs. Senior Amanda Troyer led the way with 29 to go with 15 from sophomore Makenzie Schellenberger and 13 from junior Olivia Vitaz.
• Vitaz added a team-high 49 assists to her stat line.
• Otterbein recorded 10 service aces in the game, led by two each from Troyer, Vitaz, Baum and sophomore Ashley Kefauver.
• Scherger and Baum led the way with three blocks each.

Match Highlights

• Otterbein came out strong, opening the first set on a 12-4 run, getting three kills from Scott, two kills from Scherger and one each from Hoffman, Baum and junior Maddie Mergen and an ace from Vitaz. Three straight points via an ace from Vitaz sandwiched between kills from Baum put the Cardinals up 19-12 en route to the 25-17 victory capped by an ace from Troyer.
• The Cardinals opened up a 19-13 lead in the second set, and three straight points via kills from Hoffman and Baum and an ace from Troyer mde it a 24-17 edge. Mount Union scored the next three points, but a Hoffman kill gave Otterbein the 25-20 win.
• The Purple Raiders put together a strong response with their backs against the wall, putting together a 5-0 run late in the third set for a 21-13 edge. A kill from Scott got the Cardinals got the Cardinals within six, 22-16, but Mount Union scored the next three points to force a fourth set.
• A 5-0 run early in the fourth set put Mount Union up 11-8, but Otterbein quickly put an end to that momentum with a 9-1 spurt for a 17-12 lead. That Cardinal run included three kills from Scherger and one from Scott and one ace each from Kefauver and freshman Kaitlyn Schram. Three straight Otterbein points via two kills from Hoffman and a kill from Baum put the Cardinals up 20-14, but the Raiders continued to battle. Leading 23-21, Otterbein got to match point via a kill from Scott, but Mount Union answered with a 3-0 run to tie the score at 24. The Cardinals scored the next two points, though, getting a kill from Scott and forcing a Mount Union attack error to win the match.
• Otterbein finished with 57 kills while hitting .155, and Mount Union finished with 42 kills while hitting .140.

Quotes

• Head coach Monica Wright on returning to the OAC Tournament championship game: "That's always the goal. We don't have the conference championship that we set out for yet, so we're excited to have a chance to compete for the conference tournament championship on Saturday."
• Wright on her team's resilience to come away with a win as Mount Union continued to battle: "I thought we absolutely killed it in the first two sets, which is what we wanted to see. But we need to weather the storm a little better. I thought we lost a little bit of our confidence and swagger, which has happened to us before. That's an area where we still need to improve if we want to win a championship."

Notables

• This marks Otterbein's 28th OAC Tournament appearance. The Cardinals have a 25-23 record in tournament play with five championships (2012, 2017, 2020-21, 2022, 2023).
• Thursday's game was a rematch of last season's OAC Tournament championship game, which Otterbein won 3-2 in Westerville. The Cardinals defeated the Purple Raiders 3-0 in Alliance during the teams' regular-season meeting on Oct. 4 and have now won nine straight matches against Mount Union. The Purple Raiders are 6-5 against Otterbein in the teams' 11 tournament meetings.
• Hoffman is the reigning OAC Tournament MVP, joining Troyer and Vitaz on the 2023 All-OAC Tournament Team.
• Hoffman, Troyer, Vitaz, Scherger and Baum were selected to the 2024 All-OAC Team on Monday. Hoffman was a First Team honoree, while Troyer and Vitaz were named to the Second Team, and Scherger and Baum were Honorable Mention picks.
• Hoffman closed the regular season with 1,014 career kills, becoming the 10th student-athlete in the history of the Otterbein volleyball program to surpass 1,000 career kills. She now ranks eighth all-time at Otterbein in career kills with 1,030. Morgan Lowenkamp ('14-'17) ranks seventh all-time with 1,042.
• Troyer ranks third all-time at Otterbein in career service aces (171) and fourth all-time in career digs (1,665).
• Vitaz has 1,757 career assists.
• Head coach Monica Wright is in her 18th year at Otterbein and boasts an all-time record of 374-185 at the helm of the Cardinals.