BOWLING GREEN, Ohio -- The Ball State women's volleyball team had a weekend filled with comebacks at the Mid-American Conference Tournament. However the final comeback of the weekend was not in its favor.
On Friday, the Cardinals and Northern Illinois battled back and forth for a five-game match with Ball State, winning 3-2 (30-25, 29-31, 36-34, 30-28, 15-13). In the semifinals on Saturday, though, there was only one comeback and it was from Marshall. The Herd erased a two-game deficit to end the Cardinals' season (20-30, 22-30, 30-28, 30-26, 15-10).
"That's what makes volleyball such a tough game," head coach Randy Litchfield said. "Once the momentum gets away from you, it can go for good and that's what happened."
The loss, BSU's first five-game setback this season, came the day after the team had one of its best matches of the season in the quarterfinals.
The Cardinals had season-highs in total kills (95), attempts (232) and assists (89). Their 94 digs were the second-best dig total of the season.
The team had five players finish with double-figure kill totals, led by junior Rachel Refenes with 25. Litchfield said getting Refenes involved was a big key.
"We wanted to isolate Refenes over their small setter and we were able to do that a bunch," he said.
Junior Kristin Westhof added 19 and sophomores Kelly Cochran, Heather Burleson and Kirby Gibson added 17, 15 and 13, respectively. Senior Stephanie Keller led the team in digs with 32 and Refenes added seven total blocks.
"We played with as much heart and soul as possible," Litchfield said. "We played really good physical volleyball."
While the team did have several high points, it also had some low points, most notably the Huskies' 21-9 run to end game two. Ball State had a 20-10 lead, but Northern ended up winning 31-29.
"I really felt like game one and game two, up to point 20-10, we were really sharp and executed real well," Litchfield said. "We sure shut down our mental process late in game two and had a hard time getting it back.
"I was just upset that coming off of what happened two weeks ago to that team that ... we would roll over after really earning a big lead."
Northern won the next game in dramatic fashion with a 36-34 victory. Ball State appeared to win, 34-32, after Refenes and Westhof recorded a block, but the officials called for a replay because they could not come to a consensus on the call.
Ball State was down 25-20 in the fourth game, but rallied to get a 30-28 win and force a deciding game five, which it won 15-13 victory.
The Cardinals won the first two games against Marshall and were on track to win game three until around the 20-point mark. Marshall got within two at 24-22 and Litchfield took a timeout to stop momentum, but Marshall's head coach Mitch Jacobs said that's when he told his team they could turn it around.
"That was the timeout we told them 'Hey were starting to play real well, if we can just keep it up and force Ball State to make some errors then we can take this match,'" Jacobs said.
Marshall continued the run, eventually tying the game at 26 and winning it 30-28.
"Late in game three, we let their setter singlehandedly save them with her offense, tipping the ball," Litchfield said.
Marshall went on to win the next two games 30-26 and 15-10, ending Ball State's season with a 20-10 record.
Jacobs said afterwards that beating a storied team like Ball State was a big moment for the program.
"This is just a really proud moment in volleyball for the Herd," Jacobs said. "You've got the most decorated volleyball program in the league and they've got you in a 2-0 hole and we're not even in it."
Keller was named to the All-Tournament team, she finished with 51 digs in the Cardinals two games.
Litchfield said his team laid it on the line all weekend, but just couldn't play with enough quality late in games.
"I told the seniors they gave it all they had," he said. "I can only hope we have some younger players on this roster that can be close to what they were, that's obviously something we're going to have to work on."
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