Listen Here
By Alyssa Grevenkamp
@Gbabyy20
The Oiler volleyball team has been having a stellar season thus far. Over the weekend, the lady Oilers went up north to face two of their toughest opponents of the season.
In the first match, the Oilers faced number-three-ranked Ferris State.
The Oilers were led by freshman Amanda Winner who had nine kills and four digs. Junior Hannah Tong was also an attacking threat as she had eight kills.
Sophomore Nickyla Garverick also contributed to the cause with two blocks and five kills.
Senior Becca Shoemaker led the defense with 14 digs. Freshman Hailee Olson ran the offense fairly well once again as she ended up with 21 assists.
The Oilers were on the losing end of the match, though. They lost 3-0 (17-25, 20-25, 15-25) to a strong Ferris State team.
Findlay didn’t have a great hitting day — hitting .036 as Ferris State hit .210.
Hitting wasn’t the only problem Findlay had against Ferris.
“In the Ferris game, we made several silly errors on our side of the court,” said senior Julie Lyons. “They weren’t making those kinds of errors so it really hurt us.”
The Oilers didn’t have a stellar match against the Bulldogs, but they had a chance to turn things around as they faced number-24-ranked Grand Valley State on Saturday, Oct. 24.
Findlay players Tong and sophomore Erika Roach led the way offensively as they accumulated 22 and 18 kills, respectively. Garverick was also a factor as she added 10 kills and led the Oilers with three blocks.
Olson had another spectacular match recording 61 assists and serving two aces for Findlay. Shoemaker led the team with 25 digs.
Two other freshman helped the cause on the defensive side as Kara Scherger had 14 digs and Madelyn McCabe had 10 digs.
Although Grand Valley’s hitting percentage was a bit better than Findlay’s hitting percentage, .304 to .215, the Oilers still managed to come away with the victory. The Oilers won 3-2 (25-23, 23-25, 28-26, 17-25, 15-12).
Although they beat number-24-ranked GVSU, this win wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for Findlay.
“We beat Saginaw Valley earlier in the season when they were ranked so this was nothing new to us. It was still a huge win for us, but we didn’t look at Grand Valley as a ranked team. We just decided to go out and have fun. We played more relaxed and more determined to win,” said Lyons.
This was a huge win for the Oilers, improving their record to 16-6. This game also put them in a tie for first place in the South Division with Ashland.
“Now we’ve set ourselves up to win out the season and be second in the conference. This also allows us to have a good chance to make it into the NCAA tournament,” said Lyons.
The women’s volleyball team will be back in action this weekend as they take on Tiffin Friday, Oct. 30 and Ohio Dominican on Saturday, Oct. 31.
