BOX SCORE
KALAMAZOO -- Junior outside hitter Michelle Moore hammered home a match-high 16 kills and junior libero Caitlin Strimel added a match-high 21 digs to lead Western Michigan past Ball State 25-22, 25-11, 25-21 in front of 757 at University Arena on Saturday night.
Moore hit .371 on the evening and sophomore middle blocker Jaime Gotham added nine kills hitting .389 and three blocks for the Broncos (14-3, 5-1 MAC) who remain in a tie with Central Michigan at the top of the Mid-American Conference West Division.
Sophomore Allyson Doyle added 11 digs and seven kills and junior Katie Eberling had 10 digs and six kills as she moved into seventh in career digs with 924. Junior setter Jillian Mitchell added 39 assists and five digs.
"Offensively, we played very well all weekend and had great distribution of the ball," head coach Colleen Munson said. "Both victories helped us improve against two different styles and we were able to adjust on the fly and continue to improve on our side of the net."
A block by Doyle and Gotham gave the Broncos an early advantage, 4-3, over the Cardinals (8-12, 4-2 MAC) in the first set. That would be the only lead change, but Ball State would hang around. A 4-0 run gave the Broncos a five-point edge, 17-12, but Ball State cut the lead to three, 23-20, before committing a service error. Back-to-back kills made it a two-point set, 24-22, but Mitchell ended that with a well-timed dump to give WMU the victory, 25-22.
Each team had 11 kills in the set as WMU hit .086 and Ball State hit .105, but the difference came at the service line. The Cardinals committed six errors to just one for the Broncos.
Moore opened the second set with a kill and Western Michigan never looked back in winning the second set. Ball State closed to within one, 9-8, but then WMU took ultimate control with 12-1 run and an insurmountable lead, 20-9. Eberling ended the set with a kill, 25-11.
Eleven points is tied for the second-lowest point total allowed in a set by the Broncos all season. The Broncos hit .432 with 18 kills and two errors in 37 attempts, while limiting Ball State to seven kills and a .088 attack percentage.
The Broncos opened set three on a 7-2 run, but Ball State clawed its way back to even the match, 14-14. Kills by Moore and Eberling gave the Broncos the lead back, but BSU was resilient and took its first lead, 17-16, on an ace, and again moments later, 18-17, with a kill. The Broncos responded with three-straight points punctuated by consecutive Moore tallies to force a Ball State timeout, 20-18.
The Cardinals scored the next two points to even the set, but kills by Kate Corbett and Moore followed by a pair of BSU miscues put WMU back up four, 24-20. A service error saved one match point for Ball State, but Moore wasn't as kind with a hammer off the left side to end the match, 25-21.
The Broncos added another 18 kills in set three and hit .286, while 20 digs helped limit Ball State to 11 kills and a .116 attack percentage.
The Broncos finished with more kills (47-30), assists (43-29) and digs (56-46) and a better attack percentage (.272-.104). The Bronco defense made sure that Ball State had no double-digit kills from any player. The leader was Elaina Kakatolis with eight.
Western Michigan is back in action in Kalamazoo next weekend against Akron and Buffalo on Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. Saturday is Volleyball Cares where fans are encouraged to wear pink in support of cancer awareness and research.
