No. 5 Volleyball falls to Mount Union in five-set match that goes down to the wire

Kasey Roeser

By Steven Wright

| Box Score |

ALLIANCE - Mount Union upset the No. 5 Ohio Northern volleyball team Saturday afternoon, beating the Polar Bears by a slim 16-14 margin in Set 5 to take over second place in the Ohio Athletic Conference.

Northern falls to 23-3 overall on the year and 5-2 in the OAC. Mount Union moves to 20-4 and 6-1 in the OAC with the 20-25, 25-20, 25-17, 18-25, 16-14 victory.

The loss for the Polar Bears marks the first time since 1998 that Ohio Northern has dropped two OAC regular season contests in the same season.

Sophomore libero Kasey Roeser shattered her previous career-high dig total by recording 39 digs in the match. She had 35 against Heidelberg on October 7 of last season.

Her 39 digs also move her into seventh place on ONU's all-time digs list with 1,261 for her career.

Senior All-American Liz Schnelle had a solid all-around performance to lead the Polar Bears, tying a career-high with 31 kills and added nine digs.

Schnelle's 31 kills came on a career-high 71 attempts, as she had a .380 hitting percentage.

Also obliterating a previous career high was junior setter Kelly Smerekanich who had 61 assists on the afternoon. She had 33 assists in the team's last match against Wilmington for her previous career best.

Senior middle hitter Lindsey Pruneski was the only other Polar Bear to join Schnelle in double-digit kills. She had a career-high 16 kills on a career-high 34 attempts.

Schnelle and Pruneski also helped the defense immensely with three and four total blocks, respectively.

Senior Liz Decima had a nice performance on defense with 10 digs against the Purple Raiders, while senior Renee Berry (23 digs) and Smerekanich (12 digs) also played well defensively.

MUC was led by Leah Hirsch and Sarah Parker who had 15 and 14 kills, respectively.

Ohio Northern will look to rebound on Tuesday when the team travels to Baldwin-Wallace for a 7 pm match.