Final Stats

MUNCIE, Ind. â€"â€" The Navy (5-1) volleyball team bounced back from a Friday morning loss to Ball State (3-1) to defeat Fort Wayne (3-3) Friday evening at Worthen Arena on the Ball State campus in Muncie, Ind. The Mids lost to the Cardinals in three sets (25-7, 25-18, 27-25) and recorded a three-set victory (25-23, 25-19, 25-13) over the Mastodons on the opening day of the Ball State Tournament.

Navy will close out play at the tournament Saturday at 3 p.m. against Bradley.

Navy's day began with a rough start in set one against Ball State. The Cardinals posted 14 kills and one error on 27 attempts (.481) in the first set, while the Mids tallied four kills and seven errors on 26 attacks (-.115) in the frame.

The Mids improved their hitting mark to .132 in the second set, but the Cardinals still hit .472 in the set to take a 2-0 advantage.

Navy was able to get its offense on track in the third set and outhit Ball State in the stanza, .359-.185. The set had 13 ties and six lead changes. The Cardinals held an 18-14 lead late in the set only to see the Mids come back and tie the score at 19-19. The score would be knotted again at each point through 25-25 when a Ball State kill and a Navy ball handling error gave the home team the last two points of the set and match.

"We didn't do a good enough job recovering from our match Wednesday against Air Force," said Navy head coach Larry Bock. "Physically and mentally, we had to do better. Combine our coming off that emotional effort against Air Force with a Ball State team that had five days between matches and was playing in its home opener, and we struggled."

Ball State's offense notched 49 kills and a .342 hitting percentage and its defense limited Navy to 30 kills and a .155 hitting performance. Both teams posted a trio of blocks, but the Cardinals snared 52 digs and dropped in six aces to 41 digs and three aces for the Mids.

Maddi Sgattoni (Fr., Pittsburgh, Pa.) paced the Mids with seven kills, Tara Dotzauer (Sr., Raleigh, N.C.) had six kills and no attack errors on 16 swings for a .375 hitting match and Emily Solis (So., Leesburg, Va.) grabbed 10 digs.

Ball State's offense was led by Brooklyn Goodsel with 18 kills, while Amber Seaman totaled 12 digs to lead the defense for the Cardinals.

The Mids capped their first day in program history in Indiana with the sweep of the Mastodons. Navy gradually built a 14-10 lead midway through the first set only to see Fort Wayne tie the score at 17-17. The Mids never trailed, but the score would be tied at 18-18, 19-19 and 20-20. Katie Patrick (Jr., Aurora, Colo.) notched a kill to again give the Mids the slim one-point advantage, but that margin doubled to 22-20 on a kill by Maggie Phillips (Sr., Leesburg, Va.). The Patrick-Phillips duo then teamed for a block to give the Mids a 23-20 lead. A service error gave the Mastodons a point and the serve, but a Fort Wayne attack error took the Mids to set point. It wasn't until Navy's third set point opportunity that it was able to convert and did so on a kill by Phillips.

Navy held a 14-11 lead in the second set, but this time was able to separate as an 8-3 run gave it a 23-14 lead, which was enough of a cushion to win the frame.

The Mids then scored the initial eight points of the third set to come away with the victory.

"This was an important match for us coming off of this morning's result," said Bock. "Fort Wayne is no slouch. There were long rallies and each team had to work hard for points."

Navy totaled only one more kill than Fort Wayne had in the match (38-37), but the Mids committed half as many attack errors (12-25) to outhit the Mastodons, .241-.103. This is despite Navy holding slim leads in both digs (48-46) and blocks (9-6).

Patrick posted nine kills and just one attack error on 19 attempts for a .421 hitting night. She also recorded five blocks and having notched three blocks against the Cardinals.

"Katie led the recovery efforts from this morning to this evening," said Bock. "It seems to be a common denominator in that when Katie plays well, we as a team play well. She is a cagey hitter who earns every kill."

Sgattoni added eight kills for the Mids with Dotzauer recording seven kills. Solis again paced the Navy passers with 15 digs.

"We were out of system for much of the Ball State match," said Bock, "but Emily really settled us down and got us into system. That allowed us to get the ball to Katie much more."

Indiana natives Patricia Mattingly (Jr., New Albany, Ind.) and Olivia Kluger (Sr., Carmel, Ind.) both played well in the matches. Mattingly totaled 51 assists and 14 digs in the two matches and Kluger grabbed nine kills in the morning and eight kills in the evening.