MARIETTA, Ohio – Looking to improve its seed in the upcoming Ohio Athletic Conference tournament, the Marietta College volleyball team dropped a hard fought match to visiting Baldwin Wallace University by the score of 3-2 Saturday (Nov. 2) morning.
Baldwin Wallace (11-17 overall, 4-5 in the OAC) posted set scores of 25-18, 25-19, 19-25, 17-25 and 20-18. With the victory, the Yellow Jackets will be the No. 6 seed in the OAC Tournament. Marietta (12-17 overall, 2-7 OAC) earned the No. 8 seed.
Baldwin Wallace took advantage of Marietta's 17 attacking errors in the first two sets to jump on top. The Pioneers turned the tables on BW and won the third and fourth sets to force the deciding fifth set.
The Yellow Jackets needed extra points to secure the win in the final set as neither team led by more than four points. The score was tied nine times during the set including ties at 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18. BW won the final three points to get the win including kills by junior Alayna Chlad on the last two points.
Playing with just seven players, Marietta relied on sophomore middle blocker
Chloe Janson (Lawrenceburg, Ind./East Central) to lead the attack. Janson finished with a career-high 27 kills on 69 total attacks. Classmate
Shauntiel Oliver-Smith (Elyria, Ohio/Elyria) chipped in with 14 kills and three blocks.
Junior setter Lara Mauer dished out a match-high 53 assists and recorded a season-best 25 digs. Freshman
Mallory Vodopich (Canton, Ohio/Massillon Perry) had 35 digs and four service aces, while senior
Amber Wiley (Brunswick/Brookside) added 28 digs fro the libero position.
Wiley, the lone senior on Marietta's roster, played her final match in Ban Johnson Arena and went over the 700-career digs mark in the match. She currently has 712 digs in her four-year career.
Marietta travels to top-seeded Mount Union on Tuesday (Nov. 5) for the first round of the OAC Tournament. Game time is set for 7:00 p.m. Fans can follow the Pioneers all season long at
pioneers.marietta.edu. You can also follow the Pioneers on Facebook at
facebook.com/MariettaCollege and @MariettaPioneer on Twitter.
