Chippewa volleyball bounces back after home sweep, earns 3-1 win at Toledo
The Chippewa's volleyball team fell to Bowling Green 3-1 Feb. 25 in McGuirk Arena.
After spending two weeks on their home court, the Chippewa volleyball team hit the road again.
Their destination? Savage Arena.
Despite being swept Mid-American Conference leader Bowling Green at McGuirk Arena on March 4-5, the Chippewas proved that they weren't fazed by the weekend sweep and went on to defeat Toledo 3-1 on Friday in Savage Arena.
Head coach Mike Gawlik said that one of his team's primary goals for Friday was to play a complete match -- a behavior picked up from the matches against Bowling Green -- where the Chippewas' play would not be determined by if Toledo was playing well or not.
"I thought we did a pretty good job of that," Gawlik said. "Not that every moment was perfect, but I thought that the pressure that we applied to Toledo was fairly consistent throughout the match."
Although they dropped one set to Toledo (3-9), the Chippewas (8-7) played a well-rounded match and held a strong rhythm; Gawlik said that although there are a few games sometimes where one or two players will have a better game than the rest. The match against the Rockets helped showcase that all of his players have the skill and the power to come up big.
"When we hit .279 as the team, that's really good," Gawlik said. "That just shows a pretty balanced attack; we had three, four attackers here that were really hitting well. ... We have pretty good pressure and really good attacking from a lot of people in our group, and when you can come with four, five, six attackers, you can become a hard team to stop."
Impact moments
The first set was closely contested, with CMU leading from the beginning. Toledo tried its best to keep the set close, but the Chippewas pulled away for a 25-17 win in the opening frame.
CMU found itself with a shaky start to the second set, amassing a number of attack errors which allowed Toledo to pull ahead. A time out for the Chippewas snapped the lull, allowing them to score five straight points and catch up to the Rockets, but could not turn the score. Toledo won the second set 25-22, tying the match at 1-1.
The Chippewas found redemption for their start in the second set by becoming the aggressor and cleaning up errors in the third set. Toledo fought to tighten the score once CMU reached the 20s, but the Chippewas were victorious in the third set, winning 25-22.
Now back in the groove, the Chippewas found the opportunity to put the pedal to the metal and breeze past the Rockets in the fourth set. By maintaining the aggressor, CMU closed out the evening with a 25-16 set win for a 3-1 victory.
Impact players
Junior outside hitter Savannah Thompson led with 17 kills and 18 digs and added an ace.
Sophomore outside hitter Anna Erickson finished the night with 12 kills and four aces.
Senior middle blocker Lisbeth Rosario-Martinez hit .450 percent with 12 kills, as well as two aces and a block.
Junior middle blocker Maddie Whitfield amassed a total of six blocks to lead CMU.
Senior setter Grace Butler contributed a team-high 28 assists for the Chippewas.
Up next
The Chippewas will finish the series against the Rockets at 3 p.m. Saturday in Savage Arena.
