POINT LOOKOUT, Mo. – The MACU Volleyball team struggled to slow down Bethel in its NCCAA National Championship Pool Play opener inside Keeter Gymnasium on Wednesday morning as the Evangels fell in straight sets to the Pilots.
 
SCORE

• Bethel 3, Mid-America Christian 0 (25-20, 25-15, 25-20)
  • Mid-America Christian (20-13)
  • Bethel (21-9)

TOP PERFORMERS

• Miriam Nardi – 10 Kills, .333 ATK%
• Alica Obusekova – 10 Kills, .269 ATK%, 8 Digs
• Madison Lee – 13 Assists, 7 Digs
• Ryley Bowden – 12 Digs, 5 Assists

MATCH SUMMARY

• Set One
  • After trading the first six rallies, Bethel seized the early advantage by rattling off four straight points as Paige Franz's service ace gave the Pilots the 7-3 lead.
  • Mid-America Christian fought its way back during the midway point of the set by tallying a 5-1 run capped off on back-to-back kills by Annabeth Fehrle and Sarah Jones-Stafford to tie it up at 13-all before Bethel countered with a five unanswered run of its own to retake an 18-13 lead.
  • The Evangels tried to take advantage of three Pilots attack errors late to cut it to a 22-20 game, but BU closed out the set by scoring the final three off back-to-back MACU attack errors and a Haley Tacke termination to seal the 25-20 result.
• Set Two
  • Mid-America Christian got off to a strong start to the second set by scoring four of the first six with Ryley Bowden scoring a service ace to give MACU its largest lead of the match to this point at 4-2.
  • The Pilots utilized a four-straight rally run of their own to take the two-point edge before a run of nine consecutive rally points made it a 10-9 game near the halfway point on Miriam Nardi's kill.
  • A Maddy Payne point on the attack completely changed the tide of the match as BU went on a dominant 11-2 run allowed the Pilots to run away with an eventual 25-15 win.
• Set Three
  • After going back-and-forth through the first half of the set, the Evangels managed to find some rhythm midway through as back-to-back kills by Nardi and Alica Obusekova followed by a BU setting miscue allowed the Evangels to seize the 12-10 advantage.
  • Bethel threatened to put MACU at risk with a three-unanswered run down the stretch, but MACU didn't go down without a fight as three-straight Evangels points off kills apiece from Fehrle and Lena Stockhammer set Natalia Rodriguez up for a service ace to draw it even at 18-18.
  • However, the Evangels weren't able to complete the rally as BU ended the match with a 7-2 run to wrap-up the straight-set win by a score of 25-20.

MATCH NOTES

• Mid-America Christian struggled to generate much of an attack against Bethel's strong blocking scheme as MACU was only able to notch 33 kills and committed 20 errors for a .117 hitting percentage while Bethel hit for 39 kills while tallying only 12 miscues for a .267 attack rate.
• Scoring at the net played a major factor in the result as the Pilots finished with eight total blocks while the Evangels only allied three rejections.
• The service line also wasn't kind for MACU as the Evangels tallied only five aces and committed eight errors while Bethel finished with six aces and three errors for a six-point scoring differential from the line.
• Despite a tough morning in the attack for MACU, Miriam Nardi and Alica Obusekova managed to hit pretty well at the net with both players tallying 10 terminations with Nardi hitting for a strong .333 attack percentage and Obusekova narrowly missing a double-double with a solid .269 hitting clip and eight digs.
• Madison Lee led MACU's distribution efforts with 13 assists to go with seven digs while Casady McKinney also narrowly missed a double-double with 10 assists and nine shovels.
• Ryley Bowden guided the MACU back row efforts with 12 digs and dished out five assists in the passing game.
• The meeting between the Evangels and Pilots marked the third time the two squads have squared off at the NCCAA National Championships in the last five years as Bethel has now won two of those three meetings.

UP NEXT

• Mid-America Christian will be seeking to bounce back in NCCAA National Championship Pool Play tomorrow morning as the Evangels take on No. 8 seed Carolina (N.C.) at 9 a.m. inside Keeter Gymnasium before wrapping up pool play against top-seeded Columbia International (S.C.) at 1:30 p.m.