No. 17 Volleyball advances in OAC Tournament with semifinal victory over Mount Union

By Tim Glon

ADA — The No. 17-ranked Ohio Northern volleyball team advanced to the finals of the Ohio Athletic Conference Tournament with a 23-25, 25-14, 25-23, 25-10 victory over Mount Union in a semifinal match Thursday night at the ONU Sports Center.

The top-seeded Polar Bears (21-5 overall) will now host second-seeded Otterbein in the finals on Saturday at 2 pm.

The fourth-seeded Purple Raiders fall to 21-7.

This marks the 29th time in the 38-year history of the OAC Tournament that Ohio Northern has reached the finals. ONU has won 21 OAC Tournament titles in its history.

Northern has now won 27 of the 38 OAC Regular Season titles since the league began sponsoring volleyball as a championship sport in 1984.

Senior Melina Woods (Ada) had 14 kills and freshman Taylor Baxter (Bellevue) each had 13 kills and six blocks for Ohio Northern.

Sophomore Sydney Eggleton (Southfield, Mich./Farmington) and freshman Emma Strozewski (Lakeville, Minn./North) added 11 kills each

MtU was led by Heaven Bartell with 13 kills and Darby Leininger with 11 kills.

Mount Union scored the first five points of the match and led 8-2 before ONU rallied to take a 15-14 lead in the opening set.

But the Purple Raiders used a 6-1 run to grab a 20-16 lead. A kill by Strozewski got ONU within 24-23 but a kill by Leininger gave MtU the opening set.

Northern hit a blistering .536 in Set 2. An 8-2 run gave ONU a 15-7 lead and the hosts cruised from there.

MtU led 19-18 in set three, but a 6-0 Polar Bear run made it 24-19. A kill by Eggleton ended the set at 25-13.

Northern raced to an 11-2 lead in the fourth set and were not threatened the rest of the way.

Northern hit .263 with 60 kills and 15 errors on 171 attacks, while Mount Union hit .114 with 44 kills and 24 errors on 176 attempts.

Freshman Rachel Jennings (Novi, Mich.) had 24 digs and senior Kiki Carle (Cincinnati/Mother of Mercy) added 35 assists for ONU.