Volleyball shutout in Toledo, marks sixth straight loss
The CMU women's volleyball team shakes hands with Ohio University after their loss on Saturday, Sept. 22 in McGuirk Arena.
In its sixth shutout of the 2018 season, the Central Michigan volleyball team dropped its sixth straight match, falling to Toledo 3-0 (18-25, 20-25, 23-25).
Despite picked to finish last in Mid-American Conference West division, Toledo (7-7, 2-1 MAC) has won two straight at Western Michigan and now against CMU.
CMU kept it close in each of the three sets, trading the lead in the opening two sets before Toledo made a late-set charge. The Rockets finished set one and set two on a 9-2 run and a 6-2 run respectively to quickly go up 2-0 on CMU.
In set three, CMU was tied with Toledo a total of seven times before falling by just two 23-25. CMU recorded its best hitting percentage of the match in set three at .225 with seven kills from sophomore Kalina Smith in that set alone.
CMU, now 3-12 overall and 0-3 in the MAC, finished with a .095 hitting percentage and 24 attack errors. Smith led the Chippewas with 10 kills, followed closely by freshman Megan Siversten with eight kills.
"I didn't feel that it was our best performance," said head coach Mike Gawlik. "I feel that we need more from a lot of people."
While bright spots in performances from Smith and junior Meg Kern's 20 digs, Gawlik wants to see consistent contribution from the entire team in the future.
"Our accountability to contributing is something that we're continuing to work on from everybody," Gawlik said. "I think we're just scratching the surface of what we're capable of."
Ball State (11-5, 2-1 MAC) is next up for the Chippewas as they look to bounce back and pick up their first conference victory of the season at 7 p.m Saturday in Muncie, Ind. Gawlik hopes to reset for the weekend finale of the road trip to get back on track.
'We're just going to stay the course and try to get better for tomorrow," Gawlik said. "We play a really good Ball State team and we'll kind of hit the reset button and find an opportunity to steal one on the road.
