No. 13 Volleyball has outstanding Day 1 of MSJ Invite with victories over Mount St. Joseph and Baldwin-Wallace

Liz Schnelle

By Steven Wright

| B-W Box Score | MSJ Box Score |

The No. 13 Ohio Northern volleyball team avenged an earlier home loss to No. 23 Mount St. Joseph by defeating the Lions in four sets after beating Baldwin-Wallace in a three-set sweep Friday evening at the Harrington Center.

The Polar Bears improve to 12-4 on the season.

Junior All-American Liz Schnelle had a phenomenal day, blasting a season-high 27 kills and a .545 hitting percentage against MSJ and another 15 kills against B-W.

Freshman Kasey Roeser had a career day by tallying 31 digs and four aces against MSJ.

Senior All-American setter Katie Weininger moved into fourth place on ONU's all-time assist list in the first set on a kill by junior Renee Berry. She now has 3,823 assists for her career, passing Mary Hockett (3,777) who set for the Bears from 1988-91.

Ohio Northern got off to a slow start against the Lions, but kept Set 1 close at 18-16 before MSJ seven of the next 10 points to take a 25-19 victory.

Over the next three sets, the Polar Bears completely controlled the match, led by the offense of Schnelle and senior middle hitter Samantha Markham who had 11 kills and a .400 hitting percentage.

Schnelle scored the first point of Sets 2, 3 and 4 to set the tone early for ONU and lead the team to 25-15, 25-14, 25-15 victory.

Weininger turned in 14 digs on the match to record a double-double, while Berry and sophomore Abby Schaller had 12 digs and 10 digs, respectively.

Sophomore Alex Christian also played solid on offense for ONU with nine kills.

In Set 1 against Baldwin-Wallace, the Yellow Jackets played right with the Polar Bears for much of the time, holding a 9-8 lead early.

After a Schnelle kill to tie the set, Schaller rattled off five points in a row in the service box.

During the rally, Schnelle had two more kills and teamed with Christian on a block to give ONU a 14-9 advantage.

Northern kept up the pressure, finishing Set 1 at 25-17.

The Polar Bears did not allow the Yellow Jackets to hang close for much of the second set, as they built leads of 8-2 and then 16-6 to take control.

The latter part of the set was closely contested, but Northern's early leads helped it take Set 2 25-12.

Set 3 mirrored that of Set 1, as B-W captured another 9-8 lead before Ohio Northern scored the next five points, this time off of freshman Nicole Howard's tough serving.

With Northern's lead at 17-13, junior Sharon Guzik and Schnelle racked up three and two kills, respectively, to help the Polar Bears score five straight.

The Yellow Jackets continued to battle, cutting Ohio Northern's lead to 23-18 before the Polar Bears claimed the last two points and the match.

Sophomore setter Kelly Smerekanich played well in Set 3 against B-W, dishing out 12 assists and recording three total blocks.

Schnelle had a career-high eight total blocks against B-W to add on to her performance.

Northern will continue play in the Mount St. Joseph Invitational tomorrow at 10 am against Hanover (Ind.) and 1 pm against Asbury (Ky.).