Back on the road, the UB Volleyball team lost to MAC West leading Northern Illinois 3–0 on Friday night, and then played better against Western Michigan on Saturday night but still fell 3–1. The Bulls are now 2-19 on the season and 1–7 in the MAC, at the half-way point of the MAC season.

The Northern Illinois Huskies, the defending regular season champion in the MAC, just overwhelmed the Bulls, and wound up leading in every statistical category except digs. Buffalo never scored more than 18 points in any of the three sets, and hit 0.035 for the match, and under 0.100 in each set.

Buffalo struggled to make good passes all night long, and had trouble getting the ball to their top attackers. Junior middle blocker Cassie Shado, leading the team in hitting percentage for the year, only got 9 attacks and had 4 kills, while sophomore middle blocker Megan Wernette, second on the team in hitting percentage, only got 13 attacks for 5 kills. When Buffalo struggles passing, their outside hitters usually wind up getting a majority of the attacks, and the productivity is low. Tonight was no different as sophomore Valisha Watkins had 28 attacks and 7 kills but also 10 errors, and sophomore Madison Clark and freshman Rachel Sanks split time at the other outside hitter position, and had 25 attacks combined and a combined 0.036.

The Bulls would play noticeably better against Western Michigan, and except for a 9–1 run by the Broncos to finish the first set, the Bulls were competitive throughout the match. In that first set, Buffalo was relatively close at 16–15, before the Broncos big run. Still, the Bulls did not pass well in that first set and hit only 0.050.

From that point on, Buffalo played much better, and nearly won the 2nd set but wound up losing 27–25, then UB dominated the third set 25–17, before finally losing the fourth set 25–21. During these three sets, the passing was much better, and the team hit 0.304, 0.235 and 0.309 in the last three sets. Buffalo's blocking was very strong, helping the Bulls stay in the match, as the team had a very large number of block touches (most of them by the 6-3 Wernette) to slow down the Broncos offense. Buffalo's back row defense, led by freshman libero Maddie Torbeck (17 digs) and freshman defensive specialist Hannah Watson (13 digs) and freshman setter Scout McLerran (17 digs), contributed to Buffalo's staying in many points and winning many points.

As an indication of the improved passing, setter McLerran had 43 assists (compared to 21 against NIU), but the impressive statistic was that her five attackers had a very balanced distribution of attacks tonight. Shado had 24 attacks for 13 kills and hit 0.417, while Wernette had 11 kills on 32 attacks and hit 0.312. Sanks took 29 attacks for 10 kills (a career high for Sanks), senior right side Amber Hatchett had 27 attacks and 7 kills, and Watkins and Clark combined for 29 attacks.

In that third set, it was Wernette who starred. She stepped to the service line with the Bulls leading 5–2 and served the next 7 points, and as mentioned, she had a huge number of block touches. Her serving streak included 3 aces and several other strong serves that directly led to poor WMU returns and Buffalo points. Those three aces, coming in a stretch of seven points, gave Wernette a new career high in aces.

WMU would still wind up with more kills than the Bulls (62–51), and fewer attack errors (12–16), as they seemed to be able to get more out of their offense than the Bulls did. In particular, the Bulls couldn't stop the Broncos 6-3 middle blocker Sydney LeMay who wound up with 16 kills and hit 0.429. That's a lot of points for a middle blocker.

Buffalo's third set victory was their first set victory over a MAC opponent since they defeated Akron 3–2 three weeks ago. And while the end result was a loss for UB, they played WMU essentially even except for that 9–1 WMU run at the end of the first set.

Buffalo returns home to face Central Michigan on Friday, October 21; and Eastern Michigan the next night. Both matches start at 6pm. Buffalo beat both teams on the road last year, each match going five sets and each fifth set went to 13–13 before Buffalo pulled out the win.

Notes:

• WMU setter Mary Murphy is the sister of US Olympic Team starting right-side attacker Kelly Murphy.
• The ESPN3 announcers @AaronCoyleRadio and @TBeeckman13 both had high praise for McLerran throughout the broadcast.
• Buffalo coach Blair Brown Lipsitz continues to alternate three outside hitters to see who is performing well on a given night. Tonight, Sanks got more playing time than in any recent match, and Sanks rewarded Lipsitz's decision with her career high 10 kills. Clark played mostly back row. Freshman outside hitter Taina Benitez also played regularly in the back row, but did not play front row.
• Sophomore outside hitter Raven Jordan was injured during the first few weeks of the season. She then appeared briefly in two matches, but hasn't played since September 10, although I'm told the injury is gone.