What could have been an excellent start to the Big Ten season for the No. 16 Ohio State women's volleyball team (8-3, 1-1 Big Ten) fell apart Saturday.
After a solid 3-1 win Friday over No. 19 Purdue, the Buckeyes led 2-0 against Illinois Saturday at St. John Arena before dropping the final three games to suffer a loss.
In the Big Ten opener, OSU took on previously unbeaten Purdue and jumped on the Boilermakers early, taking a 10-3 lead in the first game. The Buckeyes never relinquished the lead, winning the first game 30-25.
Coach Jim Stone emphasized the importance of taking an early lead.
"Volleyball is a real momentum sport, and the fact that we were playing from in front was real important," Stone said.
It was much of the same in the second game for OSU. The Buckeyes took a back-and-forth game 30-25 thanks to the play of senior outside hitter Amanda Miller and sophomore middle blocker Danielle Meyer, who finished with 29 points on the evening.
For the first two games the Buckeyes did an excellent job of executing and playing together, Miller said
"The strategy coming into the game was to stay in the system, run the plays and stick to the game plan," she said.
After falling in the third game 30-28, the team bounced back to take the fourth game 30-23 and win its first Big Ten match of the year.
"We just talked about what we did the first and second games and focused on going back to where we were then," Miller said about the huddle after losing the third game.
Stone said he was not too nervous about the loss in the third game.
"You're not going to win 3-0 all the time, so I was not real worried," he said. "We have a lot of first-year kids out there and the fact that they were able to win gives them some confidence going into (Saturday)."
The Buckeyes used that confidence to take a 2-0 lead, but Illinois (10-3, 1-1 Big Ten) came back to steal the victory in five games.
OSU jumped out early, winning the first two games 30-27 and 30-21. Early on, the Buckeyes were led by the superb play of junior setter Marisa Main and Meyer.
In the third game, Illinois staved off a match point to come back and win 32-30. That game proved to be the turning point as OSU allowed Illinois to gain momentum.
"I thought we shot ourselves in the foot in game three by not taking advantage of a chance to win," Stone said. "They finally got momentum, and they became hard to stop."
Illinois cruised to victory in the fourth game winning 30-24, setting up a fifth and decisive game.
Neither team was able to mount a run in the deciding fifth game, but the Buckeyes were consistently behind. After fighting off numerous match points, the Buckeyes finally lost on the seventh match point to fall 20-18.
"We just made some errors at crucial points and their defense stepped up a lot from the first two games," said junior outside hitter Briana McCarthy after the game.
Although the loss might have hurt the Buckeyes, it is still early and a Big Ten Title is certainly in reach.
"We all know what we need to work on individually and as a team and just become a better team together," McCarthy said.
Up next for OSU is a home match against No. 4 Penn State Wednesday at St. John Arena.
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