Junior Claire Heitkamp drills 13 kills to lead Volleyball to 25-11, 25-20, 25-11 sweep of Baldwin Wallace

By Tim Glon

ADA — Junior Claire Heitkamp drilled a match-high 13 kills on just 22 attempts to lead the Ohio Northern volleyball tream to a 25-11, 25-20, 25-11 sweep of Baldwin Wallace on Tuesday night at the ONU Sports Center.

The Polar Bears improve to 21-5 overall and clinch the No. 2 seed in next week's Ohio Athletic Conference Tournament with a 7-1 league record.

The Yellow Jackets fall to 22-6, 5-3.

Northern can still claim a share of the OAC regular season title with a win in its regular season finale at Marietta along with a Heidelberg loss to Wilmington on Saturday.

Heitkamp hit .545 on the night with 13 kills and just one error on 22 attacks.

Senior Ellie Gillespie had nine kills and a match-high 13 digs, junior Ashley Borchers dished out 32 assists and had 11 digs and senior Kaitlann Hogrefe had seven kills for ONU.

BWU was led by Nikolette Scruggs with six kills.

Northern was in control of the match from the start as the hosts did not trail at any point in any of the three sets.

ONU scored the first four points of the match on a kill by Heitkamp and three Yellow Jacket errors.

A 6-0 run extended the lead to 20-8 and the Polar Bears cruised to the 25-11 win.

In Set 2, a 5-0 run gave ONU a quick 6-1 lead. The advantage grew to as many as 17-9 before BW mounted a comeback, pulling within 23-21.

But back-to-back kills by Heitkamp and Hogrefe ended the set at 25-21.

In the third set, another 6-0 Polar Bear run made it a 9-3 lead.

Leading 17-9, Northern went on a pair of 4-0 runs sandwiched around two BW kills to end the set at 25-11.

Ohio Northern hit .300 with 42 kills and just 12 errors, while baldwin Wallace hit .027 on 25 kills and 22 errors.

The Polar Bears will wrap up their regular season on Saturday with a 1 pm match at Marietta.