No. 1 Wittenberg advances to NCAA Tournament Championships with victory over No. 10 Ohio Northern

By Tim Glon

SPRINGFIELD — The 10th-ranked Ohio Northern volleyball team saw its 2007 NCAA Division III Tournament run come to and Saturday night, as top-ranked Wittenberg posted a 30-25, 30-24, 30-22 victory in the Great Lakes Regional finals at the HPER Center.

The Polar Bears end their season with a 29-7 record, while the Tigers (37-0) advance to the NCAA Championships next Thursday-Saturday at Bloomington, Ill.

Wittenberg will play either No. 22-ranked Stevens (N.J.) or Cortland State (N.Y.) in the quarterfinals on Thursday.

Liz Schnelle and Samantha Markham led the Polar Bears with 15 and 11 kills, respectively. Schnelle ended her sophomore season with a school-record 573 kills, shattering the previous mark of 529 set by Megan Earley in 2001.

"I thought we played exceptionally well at times in games one and two," ONU head coach Kate Witte said. "But Wittenberg is a tremendous team and you have to play nearly perfect volleyball to beat them. They took advantage of every mistake we made."

Katie Weininger dished out 38 assists and Laura Vuyk had nine kills and a team-high 16 digs for the Polar Bears.

Wittenberg was led by Emily Bell with 17 kills and 19 digs.

ONU limited WU to a .214 hitting percentage, but the Bears would only hit .173 themselves and had 15 service errors in the contest.

In Game 1, Northern crept out to a 6-4 lead, but the Tigers would respond with an 8-1 run to go up 12-7. A 6-2 WU run would expand the lead to 19-11, but Northern would come back with a 5-1 run of its own to pull within 27-22.

The two teams would trade points the rest of the way as WU would take the opener 30-25.

Liz Schnelle and Samantha Markham would each hit an error-less .500 in the first game with five and four kills, respectively, to lead the Polar Bears.

A 6-1 run gave ONU a familiar 6-4 lead early in Game 2. This time, however, ONU extended that run to 8-2 to take an 8-5 advantage.

An 8-2 Tger run would give the hosts a 13-10 lead only to see Northern battle back to tie the match at 17-all.

Leading 23-22, WU would go on a 5-1 run to take a 28-23 lead and hold on for the 30-24 victory and a two-games-to-none lead.

Wittenberg controlled Game 3 from the onset, racing to leads of 6-1, 11-2 and 14-3.

Northern pulled within 16-8 with the help of a 5-2 run and two kills by Schnelle helped ONU claw within 20-14.

But the Tigers would push the lead back to 24-15 and hold on for their 37th consecutive victory this season.