The Kent State volleyball team saw an ugly trend resurface itself against the Bowling Green Falcons, as the team lost both of its games (25-23, 25-16, 26-24), (25-22, 25-15, 25-13) over the weekend. KSU is now 1-20 on the season after being swept twice and has lost 17 games in a row. 

Getting swept has been a reoccurring issue for the Flashes. Of the 20 losses the team has suffered, 14 of them have been sweeps. 

On Friday, KSU found itself in the Stroh Center in Bowling Green, Ohio to take on a Falcons team that carried a winning record of 12-8 heading into the first game of a two game weekend slate. The Falcons were 7-2 in Mid-American Conference play and looked to make it 9-2 against a Flashes team without a MAC win. 

“We wanted to continue to grow from what we had been working on the past couple of weeks, and I think we did a really good job,” coach Haley Eckerman said. 

The first set of the game opened up with both teams trading points. Both teams traded one to two point leads up until the set was knotted at 17. After going on a 4-0 run, the Falcons began to pull away with the set at the 21st point and took the set 25-23.

Set two could not have been more different, as the Falcons led consistently throughout all of the duration of set two. After being up 8-5, the Flashes allowed Bowling Green to go on an impressive 10-3 run that saw four errors make up the bulk of the points. The Falcons would finish set two 25-16. 

“They were giving us points with missed serves and hitting errors on those enough,” Eckerman said.

The Flashes would recapture some of the fight it had in set one and would bring it to set three, going on multiple runs – one of which saw the Flashes going up 12-11 after starting down 8-5. The Falcons, led by a staunch defense that would not allow KSU to score more than two points consecutively past the 17th point, would slowly but surely creep back into the lead in set three and would claim the deciding third set 26-24.

“I think Bowling Green caught the momentum at the right time and were able to control the game,” Eckerman said. 

The opening set of Saturday’s game was a near replica of sets one and three on Friday. Neither team was able to assert itself, but a small 3-0 Falcon run when the game was tied at 13 might have been the difference in a set that was decided by three points in a  25-22 set. 

In sets two and three, the Flashes ran out of gas. Bowling Green would take a commanding lead at 21-12 in set two before never looking back, and at set three, a 20-9 lead that would give the win to the Falcons. 

Junior outside hitter Mackenzie McGuire led both games in kills with 12 and seven, respectively. McGuire leads the Flashes with 168 kills. 

Junior setter Kendall White led both games in assists with 26 and 18, respectively. White leads the Flashes with 469 assists. 

With the two losses to Bowling Green, the Flashes have found themselves at a new low at 1-20. KSU remains at the bottom of the MAC standings and has not won since the Flashes beat New Jersey Institute of Technology nearly two months ago Sept. 6. 

The season at this point has been one to forget for Eckerman and her team, but that can all be erased Nov. 1, when rival Akron comes to the M.A.C. Center. The Zips are 8-16 on the year (4-8 in conference play) and have lost five games in a row. 

“We have to ride the emotion,” Eckerman said. ”When we get too high, that’s when we try to be either too perfect or too calm.”

Historically, the Flashes are 19-11 against the Zips in a matchup that dates back to 2009. Akron has won three in a row in this rivalry and is 3-1 since Eckerman was hired by KSU in 2022. 

“The biggest thing is focusing on our side,” Eckerman said. ”We have to control what we can control.” 

Gage Wellman is a reporter. Contact him at [email protected] or @GageWellmanKSTV on X