Kent State University
15-15
University of Toledo
16-13
Flashes Fight to the End in First Round Loss to Rockets
11/18/2016 12:37:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
DEKALB, Ill. – Kent State refused to let its season come to an end and fought off nine match points in the fourth set of Thursday night's Mid-American Conference Volleyball Championship first round match inside NIU's Victor E. Court, but eventually suffered a 3-2 loss to Toledo (25-22, 19-25, 20-25, 35-33, 11-15).
The Golden Flashes (15-15) featured a balanced attack with five players posting double-figure kills. Junior Kelsey Bittinger led the way with 17 kills and did an excellent job of forcing the Rockets' defense to make plays with just 2 errors on 57 attempts. On a night in which she became the 11th player in program history to reach 1,000 digs, Bittinger fittingly added 22 digs in addition to a team-high 4 blocks.
Sophomore Lexi Mantas and junior Heather Younkin added 13 kills each from the pin positions. Junior middle blocker Amber Gerdeman matched her career-high with 12 kills with a .346 hitting percentage, while senior Drew Norberg posted 10 kills and a .389 hitting percentage over the final three sets in her first action since October 22. Norberg also shared the team lead with four blocks.
Junior Challen Geraghty matched her season-best with 34 digs for her third 30-plus dig performance in five career MAC Volleyball Championship matches. Younkin added 9 digs.
Kent State concludes the season with a 15-15 record.
Notes
• Kent State qualified for the MAC Volleyball Championship for the third consecutive year for the first time since the conference begin taking only the top 8 teams in 2011.
• The Flashes finished the season with 2,015 digs, which is the third-most in program history.
• Junior Kelsey Bittinger became just the fifth player in Kent State history to collect 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs and the first player to accomplish the feat in just three seasons.
• Bittinger finished the season with 1,273 total attacks, which ranks fourth in Kent State history.
• Junior Challen Geraghty finishes the season with 669 digs and 5.53 digs per set, which rank second and fourth in Kent State history, respectively.
