Sept. 6, 2005

Final Stats

CLEVELAND - Cleveland State (3-2) gave 12th-ranked Ohio State (3-1) everything it could handle and more, but the Buckeyes were able to escape Woodling Gymnasium with a hard-fought 19-30, 30-18, 30-26, 33-35, 15-10 victory in front of a crowd of 477 on Tuesday night.

Hosting their first ranked opponent since the 1994 season, the Vikings nearly rallied to pull off the biggest upset in school history.

"We came out and played our best game of the season to open the match," CSU head coach Chuck Voss said. "Coming into tonight we were very confident in our ability to take care of things on our side of the net, but I was a little surprised that we were able to contain them offensively the way we did."

"It certainly doesn't surprise us at all that CSU played as hard as they did," OSU head coach Jim Stone noted. "Chuck had them well-prepared and we were fortunate to win the match."

Ohio State was led by All-American setter Marisa Main, who tallied a triple-double with 14 kills, 54 assists and 14 digs. Danielle Meyer ripped a career-high 29 kills, including four in the decisive fifth game.

"Marisa won the match for us tonight," Stone pointed out. "We didn't pass very well, but she worked her butt off. She is very good at what she does. I thought at times we looked to Danielle too much and we suffered because of it. We need to get more people involved."

Nickole Kennedy paced the Vikings with 18 kills, while Jenna Maddocks finished with 15 kills and 13 digs for her third double-double of the season. Alisa Hatcher matched her career-high with a team-best 23 digs.

Voss echoed Stone's thought on the difference in the match.

"Marisa Main was the difference in the match, but we're a mentally tough team and in games three and four we went toe-to-toe and point-for-point with them. We didn't back down one bit. Ohio State definitely earned the win tonight -- we didn't give them anything."

CSU out-hit (.196 to .187) and out-blocked (8 to 6) the Buckeyes, but OSU held a commanding 93 to 70 advantage in digs, led by a match-high 25 from Brittany Dahms.

The Vikings came out firing on all cylinders in the opening game, hitting .382 (17-4-34) on the strength of Kennedy's six kills on 10 swings without an error. Leading 9-8, CSU went on a 10-4 run to open up a lead it would not relinquish.

OSU turned the tables in the second frame, limiting the Vikings to just a .073 (9-6-41) hitting percentage as Meyer ripped five kills. Tied at 8-8, the Buckeyes rode a 13-3 run to knot the match heading into the break.

It looked as though Ohio State would cruise again in game three as early leads of 6-2 and 12-5 forced Voss to burn both of his timeouts. However, CSU rallied all the way back to within one point at 25-24, but a pair of kills from both Nicole Britenriker and Meyer -- her eighth and ninth of the game -- prevented any further hopes of a comeback.

In the fourth game, the Vikings worked their way to a 14-11 lead, only to have the Buckeyes fight back to get within two points of closing out the match at 28-24. CSU refused to go quietly though, and kills by Emily Clark put bookends on a 4-1 burst that knotted the match at 29-29. The teams traded points until Danielle Siefker followed Clark's seventh kill of the game with a kill of her own to close out the frame, 35-33.

CSU scored the first two points of game five, only to watch OSU rattle off six of the next eight points to claim a lead it would not relinquish. The Buckeyes hit .261 (10-4-23) in the game, including four more kills by Meyer, while the Vikings could only muster a .133 (3-1-15) effort.

Cleveland State returns to action this weekend at the Michigan Pepsi/Nike Invitational on Sept. 9-10 in Ann Arbor. The Vikings will face Illinois State on Friday morning at 10:00 a.m. followed by a contest with the host Wolverines at 7:30 p.m. CSU will then square off against Akron at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.