BOWLING GREEN, OHIO—After her post-match interview, Megan Wielonski trotted across the court at the Stroh Center to booming cheers from a Wielonski family contingent of more than a dozen strong.
Ball State’s senior setter grew up about two and a half hours north of Bowling Green, so a family trip to see her play in the quarterfinals of the Mid-American Conference (MAC) Tournament was not a bad idea for a Friday night.
They didn’t only make the trip to see the No. 3 Cardinals (21-9, 13-5 MAC) sweep No. 6 Toledo (17-14, 10-8 MAC) to advance to the semifinals, but to see Wielonski make Ball State history as well.
“My parents were texting me [leading up to the match] and saying that I was close,” she said. “But I just went back to trusting my training and going out there and doing what I usually do.”
Wielonski served up four service aces tonight, helping the Cardinals to victory while becoming Ball State’s sole leader in service aces with 194 career service aces.
“That’s something that’s been important to her and well-deserved,” head coach Kelli Miller Phillips said. “She has been a phenomenal server all four years for us. I just felt that sigh of relief, of happiness, of joy because I know how badly she wanted that — and she served bullets.”
In addition to Wielonski’s record-breaking aces, three other Cardinals registered aces against the Rockets totaling nine as a team.
“We’ve really put a big emphasis on serving game and it’s really been nice to see it come through,” Wielonski said. “Making sure we were attacking them at the service line and being aggressive in that way is really what helped us win the game.”
Phillips said the Rockets ran a “totally different” lineup compared to what they had run during the regular season, but Ball State was able to keep them off balance from the service line, not allowing them to play their offense.
“We are one of those teams I think that’s really mature,” Phillips said. “We’ve been through a lot, we face different lineups [and] we train versus different lineups. I always tell them, coming into a tournament, we want to make sure we have Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, so no matter what anybody throws at us … you’re as prepared as possible.”
It was a business-first affair for the Cardinals, who made short work of Toledo in sets one and two with 25-16 and 25-11 set wins, respectively. Set three saw a hot start from the Rockets, in defiance of their two-set deficit. Down 8-4 early on, Phillips called timeout.
“I was not surprised by that,” Phillips said. “We had a really, really strong showing in set two and I knew they were going to bounce back. They’re a veteran team, they were going to come out playing high emotion and we had talked about that before — we got to just stay the course.”
Ball State sorted things out after the break with a 9-5 run to reestablish the lead. Toledo would stay within shooting distance in the remainder of the set, but could not regain the lead as the Cardinals ended the match with a 25-22 set victory.
“They had a very hot start,” outside hitter Carson Tyler said. “It’s hard to stay consistent through three sets. Even though it was a slow start, we still bounced back well.”
Tyler, the newly-crowned MAC Freshman of the Year, led the Cardinals with 12 kills on the night, hitting a .400 attacking clip as well. Tyler was flanked by eighth kills (.400) from redshirt sophomore Aniya Kennedy and seven (.333) from junior Madison Buckley.
“I think we knew what shots were going to be open [and] what we could attack them on,” Tyler said. “I think we really excelled and took advantage.”
In addition to her team-leading performance from the service line, Wielonski led the Cardinals with 19 assists, with sophomore Lindsey Green chipping in 16 as well. Wielonski also finished second on the roster with seven digs. Freshman Sophie Ledbetter would lead the way with 11.
After dispatching Toledo, the Cardinals will face No. 2 Central Michigan — who had a bye through the quarterfinals along with No. 1 Bowling Green — in the semifinals tomorrow at 6:30 p.m.
The two sides faced off at the beginning of October, splitting a weekend series while going to consecutive fifth sets and the Chippewas were in attendance for Ball State’s victory tonight.
“They’re a great team,” Wielonski said. “It’s going to be a different game plan than it was tonight, but [we’re] just going back to player us. We’re a different team than we were at the beginning of the year when we played them, so it’ll be cool to match up with them again and see how things play out.”
Phillips highlighted Central Michigan’s balanced offense, ball handling and defense as things to be wary of in tomorrow’s matchup.
“We’re going to have to be prepared to serve tough so they are not in system, so they can’t set every attacker every time,” Phillips said. “Then we have to play well. We’re going to have to run our offense at a high level, handle the ball and do our job again, and then again to finish the tournament.”
Now firmly in the postseason, Phillips acknowledged that there are not too many major changes the team can implement in three days and that the mental game becomes more and more of a factor as they keep playing.
“We talk a lot about what our championship behaviors are,” Phillips said. “So how well we recover, how well we’re eating and hydrating, how we’re resting [and] how we’re stretching. It all comes into play, especially when you’re going to play, hopefully, three days.”
Contact Daniel Kehn via email at daniel.kehn@bsu.edu or on X @daniel_kehn.
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