It wasn’t the prettiest of weekends for the MSU volleyball team, but the Spartans picked up a pair of victories.
On Friday, No. 22 MSU (11-3 overall, 3-1 Big Ten) needed five games to dispose of No. 16 Ohio State (6-7, 0-4).
They followed up that performance by knocking off Indiana (11-5, 1-3) on Saturday, despite trailing for a good amount of the evening.
Nevertheless, the Spartans now find themselves 3-1 in conference play, tied for third in the Big Ten.
“It’s great to be 3-1 in the Big Ten right now,” senior outside hitter Kyla Smith said.
“We’re really meshing as a team. Even though we’re not playing as well as we can, we’re playing well enough to win.”
In their first game against Ohio State, MSU flirted with disaster for nearly all of the match before knocking off the Buckeyes in five games 30-27, 23-30, 30-28, 26-30 and 17-15.
Despite Ohio State being without four starters in its lineup, MSU had its hands full with the Buckeyes, especially outside hitter Stacey Gordon.
Gordon entered the weekend fourth in the nation with 5.95 kills per game, and laced 36 in the five-game match against MSU.
But once the Spartans realized Gordon was pretty much the entire Buckeye attack, things went the Green and White’s way.
Though shutting down Gordon was crucial, the Spartan blockers also came up big. In the fifth and deciding game, Gordon recorded five kills, but more importantly, MSU’s daunting defense forced her into six attacking errors, helping MSU eke out the 17-15 victory.
“The difference in the match was we just decided to be really hard-nosed and relentless,” junior setter Nikki Colson said.
“We kept saying that we weren’t going to let them come into our court and push us around.
“Finally, in the fifth game, we put that decision into action.”
MSU hit a low .167 for the match, but the Buckeyes weren’t much better at .199. Both teams had 34 attacking errors for the match, and altogether they combined for 123 total miscues.
“This was a war, and it wasn’t pretty,” MSU head coach Chuck Erbe said. “This was about two teams going behind the woodshed and whoever came out less bloody was going to win.
“We battled, and it was a gun fight at the OK Corral. All you have to do is be better than the other team for three games, and the bottom line is when it came time to win, we won.”
The energy and excitement from Friday’s victory carried over into Saturday’s contest with a scrappy and much-improved Indiana team.
Knowing Indiana had defeated Ohio State earlier in the year, Erbe said he knew this match would be a tough one. But once MSU got use to the Hoosier attack, it was all Spartans.
“I don’t think we came out as well as we could have, but unlike Friday against Ohio State we recovered a lot faster,” junior middle Jenny Rood said. “Once we realized what Indiana was doing offensively, we played much better.”
Indiana came out of the gate and led for nearly all of the first game.
Things looked dim for the Spartans until they exploded after a timeout, taking their first lead of the game at 28-27.
The Spartans continued the scoring tear and finished the game on a 8-3 run to pick up the 31-29 victory.
After a 8-3 deficit in game two hung over the Spartans’ heads, the Spartans took over and never let Indiana back into the match.
MSU picked up a 30-25 victory before dominating game three and cruising to a 30-18 victory.
MSU hit an impressive .378 in the decisive match, registering 58 kills.
Colson was receiving what Rood called “money balls” on the serve receives, which helped open up many more offensive options for the Spartans.
Four Spartans had kills in the double digits in the match, led by 15 from senior middle Angela Morley.
Rood, Smith and sophomore outside hitter Kim Schram had 14, 13 and 12 kills, respectively.
“Once we got to a certain point in the match, we knew we had to start playing,” Erbe said. “When we finally caught them, there wasn’t going to be any denying us the win.”
