Box Score
Oakland hit .292 as a team and got 17 kills from sophomore Melissa Deatsch to sweep the Youngstown State volleyball team in the Horizon League opener for both schools on Friday night. The set scores were 25-22, 25-18, 25-18.
Youngstown State outhit Oakland .382 to .355 in the first set, but the Penguins hit .067 combined in the last two sets.
"I think our passing broke down after the first set, and Oakland is too good of a team to try and beat when you're out of system," YSU head coach Mark Hardaway said. "I think we had a good game plan, but we couldn't execute it when we couldn't pass."
There were 16 ties in the first set, and the largest margin was the final score. After Oakland led 10-8, YSU scored the next three points to take an 11-10 advantage, and neither team scored back-to-back points until kills by Lauren Thompson and Sam Brown put YSU up 16-15. Lexi Egler's fifth kill of the set tied the score at 21, but Oakland scored four of the final five points.
Oakland also closed out the second set strong by scoring nine of the final 11 points to pull away for a 25-18 win. The Golden Grizzlies had four blocks in the set, and Deatsch added six more kills to her total. YSU led 6-2 following a Brown ace, but Oakland rallied to score the next five points to go up 7-6. The largest lead for either team was two until Sammy Condon's kill put Oakland up 19-16.
YSU scored the first two points of the third set and was within 8-7 before Oakland scored three straight points to go up 11-7. A block by Egler and Aly Ryan got the Penguins back to within two points, but that's as close as YSU would get.
Shannon Watson led the Penguins with nine kills and four blocks, and Egler finished with eight. Oakland had 12 blocks as a team, and seven of those came from Condon.
Youngstown State will host Wright State on Saturday at 4 p.m.
