Ohio State
15-2
Northwestern
10-6
#9 Ohio State Sweeps Northwestern On the Road – Ohio State Buckeyes
10/9/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Oct. 9, 2015
Taylor Hughes (above)
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EVANSTON, Ill. — Carrying its highest national ranking since 2004 into the weekend, the No. 9 Ohio State University women’s volleyball program recorded a Big Ten road sweep Friday night at Northwestern (10-6, 2-3 B1G). The Buckeyes (15-2, 4-1 B1G) topped the Wildcats 25-19, 25-20, 25-18 for their fourth straight conference victory.
Reigning Big Ten Player of the Week, Audra Appold, kept her hot streak going by attacking .359 with a match-high 18 kills. The freshman added six digs and two blocks to her statistical line as well. Fellow frosh and roommate, Taylor Hughes, steered the Buckeye offensive attack to a .356 team hitting efficiency (45-13-90). Hughes dished out 33 assists as Ohio State averaged 15 kills per set on the night. Katie Mitchell and Taylor Sandbothe were also top targets for Hughes’ sets. The two OSU attackers combined for 17 kills while both swinging above .400 (Mitchell/.583; Sandbothe/.429).
Defensively, Hughes and Sandbothe each got in on three block assists to lead the way up front. In the backrow, both Valeria León and Kalisha Goree picked up nine digs. León’s final dig pushed her career total to 1,000. She is the 16th Buckeye in school history to record 1,000 or more career digs. Elizabeth Campbell reached a career milestone as well, posting her 1,200th collegiate kill and 600th as a Buckeye.
The lead exchanged hands numerous times in the opening set. The seventh and final lead swap came at 19-18 when a solo stuff from Appold pulled Ohio State ahead for good. The Buckeyes would go on to snag six of the next seven tallies and a deceiving final score of 25-19.
Sets two and three were not as highly contested, however. After taking a 9-8 edge early in the second stanza, Ohio State never trailed again the rest of the contest. Appold started to heat up in the second set, blistering seven kills on 11 errorless attempts before adding on seven more terminations in the final frame. Mitchell was clearly ready to get on the road heading towards Champaign, too, putting away five of six attacks in set number three.
Ohio State faces No. 13 Illinois Saturday night. First serve is slated for 7 p.m. CT/8 p.m. ET and will be broadcast live on BTN Plus.
