Volleyball: Muskingum (9-6 Overall, 1-0 OAC) at #13 Ohio Northern (12-1 Overall, 1-0 OAC)

Wednesday, September 29, 2021, 7 p.m. – ONU Sports Center, Ada, Ohio

| Muskingum Program (.pdf) |

Wednesday's Preview: Wednesday's match marks the end of No. 13 Ohio Northern's current four-game homestand and is the Polar Bears' second Ohio Athletic Conference game of the season … Both ONU and MU enter with a 1-0 record in conference play … Last time out, the Polar Bears got 3-set victories over Capital and Bluffton in Saturday's home tri-match … Freshman Emma Strozewski led ONU with a combined 21 kills in the 2 wins while senior Hannah Irmer had a team-high 35 digs to go with freshman Taylor Baxter's 17 kills and 6 blocks … ONU has matched its third-best start in program history, tying the 12-1 record through the first 13 games of the 1979 season … Northern finished the season at 13-0 in 1968 and won a school-record 18 straight games to open the 1990 season … Northern is currently hitting .254 as a team with 13.2 kills, 18.1 digs, 12.1 assists, 2.0 blocks and 1.5 aces per set … The Polar Bears are led by seniors Melina Woods (137 kills), Irmer (256 digs) and Kiki Carle (349 assists) along with Baxter (48 blocks) and freshman Rachel Jennings (28 aces) … Baxter (.351) and Woods (.313) lead the OAC in hitting percentage, and Baxter is second in blocks per set (1.00) … Irmer ranks fourth in the OAC in digs and second in digs per set (5.33) … Carle sits fifth in the conference in assists per set (7.59) … Jennings is second in the conference in service aces per set (0.58) … Carle has 1,507 career assists, putting her just 60 shy of tying Kelly Smerekanich's 1,567 for 10th on the program's all-time leaderboard in that category … Irmer has 1,156 career digs, which is 252 short of tying Molly Schrader's 1,408 for 10th on the program's all-time leaderboard in that category … Muskingum enters Wednesday's match riding a 4-game win streak, which includes a sweep of John Carroll in its first conference game of the season … The Fighting Muskies have played No. 1 Johns Hopkins (Md.), No. 4 Calvin (Mich.) and No. 6 Hope (Mich.), falling to each in 3 sets … MU has a team hitting percentage of .196 and is averaging 11.5 kills, 15.4 digs, 10.4 assists, 1.5 blocks and 1.4 aces per set … Senior Brooke Bigrigg, the reigning OAC Volleyball Player of the Year, has tallied a team-high 152 kills, 187 digs and 19 aces on the season for MU … Bigrigg earned OAC Defensive Player of the Week after tallying a combined 37 kills and 41 digs in the Muskies' 3 wins last week … Other top players for the Muskies include senior Erin Dickson (266 assists) and junior Emma Dunham (27 blocks) … The Muskies are coached by Hallie Cruzen, who was named the OAC Coach of the Year in 2018.

ONU Statistical Leaders:

All-Time Series: Ohio Northern leads the all-time series with Muskingum by a 62-15 margin, including 26-5 at home … The teams' last meeting was a doubleheader at Muskingum in March as part of the delayed 2020 season with the Muskies winning both games by scores of 3-1 and 3-0 … The last meeting in Ada was in September 2019 with ONU winning 3-2 … The Polar Bears are 8-2 in their past 10 games against Muskingum.

Head Coach Katie Kuhn: Kuhn is in her second season as the head women's volleyball coach at Ohio Northern with a 25-4 record (.862 winning percentage), including 14-3 (.824 winning percentage) in OAC play.