The No. 19 Ohio volleyball team has made winning in the Mid-American Conference look like clockwork.
With a win over Bowling Green on Saturday night in The Convo, Ohio went undefeated in the MAC for the third straight season. With two wins this weekend against Miami and Bowling Green, the Bobcats solidified their fourth straight regular season championship.
While the 'Cats clinched the regular season title Friday night against the RedHawks in a 3-1 victory, the Bobcats' match with the Falcons stood in their way for a perfect 16-0 mark in the conference.
The Bobcats narrowly beat the Falcons earlier this season in Bowling Green, 3-2, but Saturday's match went much smoother for Ohio. The Bobcats busted out the brooms with a 3-0 sweep over their closest competition in the MAC, 30-19, 30-26, 30-18.
The energy the whole team had was great
libero Michaele Blackburn said. It was nice to beat up on them in three handedly especially after going to five with them last time.
Blackburn and her fellow seniors said the win meant much more than just going undefeated. They wanted to keep their 45 home-match winning streak going, win the last match they would play in The Convo and put a stop to the Falcons trash-talking.
It's great
they were talking smack and saying we wouldn't win another conference title
so we kind of put it back in their face
Blackburn said. We focused on stopping their middles
and we did that better tonight than when we played them at their place.
The Bobcats downed the Falcons in front of a 2,000-plus crowd and let the Falcons play the target in the hostile home environment. Setter Savanah Parra said having the crowd backing them was a nice change after two weeks on the road.
Parra ended her home finale with 43 assists and six digs as Ohio rolled through its final home match.
It was nice having our own crowd instead of their fans yelling at us
Parra said. We wanted to prove something to them and we came in confident knowing what we had to do.
The Bobcats proved that they are the only unbeaten team in the conference and coach Geoff Carlston said he was pleased with his team's performance. However, with the regular season over, his team has to begin preparing for the MAC Tournament.
(Saturday) was good
we wanted to send a message that we deserve to be where we are
but the regular season is over
our goal was to go 16-0 and be MAC champs and we did it
