Balanced offensive attack leads No. 17 Volleyball in 3-0 sweep over Capital

By Caleb Scott

BEXLEY — The No. 17-ranked Ohio Northern volleyball team used a balanced offensive scoring attack on Friday evening as it swept Capital 3-0 at Performance Arena.

The Polar Bears improve to 17-4 overall and 2-1 in the Ohio Athletic Conference, while the Crusaders fall to 9-13, 1-3.

Sophomores Chelsea Huppert (Bremen, Ind.), Sydney Bapst (Grove City) and McKenna Jordan (Toledo/St. Ursula) paced ONU offensively, with 17, 10 and 10 kills, respectively.

Huppert hit a game-best .519 for the Polar Bears.

Freshman Katie Wade (Battle Creek, Mich./Harper Creek) posted a game-high 37 assists, while sophomores McKenna Hostetler (Plain City/Alder) and Kristin Langston (Versailles) and senior Megan Nieszala (Lambertville, Mich./St. Marys Catholic Central) all posted double-digit digs.

The first set was a back-and-forth battle as both teams stayed within three points the entire set.

Northern would open the first 3-point lead of the set as a kill from Huppert and back-to-back errors from CU allowed Northern to break an 11-11 tie and take a 14-11 lead.

After Capital battled back to 22-22, another 3-0 run capped by a service ace from Wade would seal the first set victory.

Northern led the entirety of the second set to take a commanding 2-0 lead in the contest.

A Huppert kill would push the ONU lead to 15-11 in the second set and force Capital to use a timeout.

From there, Northern would score 10 of the next 15 points, capped by a kill from Wade to take set two.

In the final set, ONU would use an 8-2 run to break a 10-10 tie and take an 18-12 lead.

Capital was able to fight back and climb within 22-21.

From there, a kill from Jordan and back-to-back kills from Huppert completed the sweep as ONU would go on to take the final set 25-22.

The Polar Bears will return to action on Tuesday evening as they travel to Tiffin to take on Heidelberg at 7 pm.