No. 4 Volleyball beats Marietta 3-1 on the road

Kelsie Zumberger

By Steven Wright

| Box Score |

MARIETTA – The No. 4-ranked Ohio Northern volleyball team was victorious 3-1 on the road at Marietta Friday evening at Ban Johnson Arena.

The Polar Bears improve to 20-2 on the year and 2-1 in the Ohio Athletic Conference. The Pioneers are now 15-7, 2-2.

Northern took the match from Marietta 25-14, 25-13, 21-25, 26-24.

Freshman setter Kelsie Zumberger had 49 assists on the night to set a career best mark. She also had nine digs and was perfect from on the attack with five kills on eight attempts (.625).

The Polar Bears were led on offense by Liz Schnelle and Abby Schaller who had 20 and 12 kills, respectively.

Each player was one kill away from tying a season high.

The defense was led by Kasey Roeser who inched closer to cracking ONU’s all-time digs list with 22 on the evening. She now has 1,146 in just her sophomore season.

Joining Roeser with double-digit kills were seniors Renee Berry with 14 and Liz Decima with 10.

Northern got off to an impressive 7-2 start in Set 1, thanks in large part to five errors by the Pioneers. The Polar Bears were able to continually build the lead and take and cruise to a Set 1 victory.

The Bears used the momentum into Set 2 and again won easily.

The Pioneers battled back and refused to quit in Set 3, however, never trailing again after the Polar Bears had a 5-4 advantage early on.

Marietta again showed its resiliency in Set 4, evaporating a 23-19 Northern advantage by scoring the next four points and tying the set.

With the fourth set tied at 24-24, the Polar Bears scored the final two points on an attack error by MC followed by a match-ending kill by Schaller.

Ohio Northern will return to action at home on Tuesday at 7 pm to host Otterbein.