No. 10 Ohio Northern wins OAC title outright with sweep at Wilmington

By Tim Glon

WILMINGTON — No. 10-ranked Ohio Northern made it a clean sweep of the Ohio Athletic Conference regular season with a 30-16, 30-19, 30-17 volleyball victory at Wilmington Tuesday night at Razik Arena.

The Polar Bears improve to 23-4 overall and win their eighth consecutive OAC regular season title with a perfect 9-0 mark.

The Quakers fall to 4-22, 0-9.

Northern also ran its win streak to an impressive 19 matches and will be the top seed at next week's OAC Tournament.

ONU will play host to the No. 8 seed Tuesday night at 7 pm at the ONU Sports Center. With a win in the quarterfinals, ONU would host the OAC Tournament semifinals Friday night, Nov. 2, and the finals on Saturday, Nov. 3.

Sophomore Liz Schnelle and senior All-American Laura Vuyk led the Polar Bears against Wilmington with 13 and 11 kills, respectively.

Northern took control of the match from the get-go, using a 13-2 run to take a commanding 13-4 lead in Game 1.

In Game 2, ONU used a 5-0 run to take a 10-6 lead and methodically pulled away for the 30-19 victory.

ONU substituted freely in Game 3, but the result was was similar, as ONU used a pair of 5-0 runs to turn an 8-6 lead into an insurmountable 18-8 advantage.

The Polar Bears will wrap up their regular season schedule this weekend at the Emory Invitational in Atlanta, Ga.

ONU will face Randolph Macon (Va.) and No. 8-ranked Emory (Ga.) on Friday and will play Birmingham Southern (Ala.) on Saturday in the tournament.