Volleyball Closes Home Slate Thursday Versus Toledo

Thursday, November 2

Muncie, IN

7 p.m.

Ball State University

University of Toledo

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Photo by: Ball State University Creative Services

Volleyball Closes Home Slate Thursday Versus Toledo

November 01, 2017 | Women's Volleyball

Weekly Notes: Toledo & Akron (PDF)

THIS WEEK'S LINKS
Thursday, Nov. 2 hosts Toledo (7 p.m.) | Live Stats | Live Video
Saturday, Nov. 4 at Akron (5 p.m.) | Live Stats

WHAT TO WATCH FOR THIS WEEK
• THE WEEK AHEAD: Ball State women's volleyball fans have one last chance to catch the Cardinals in Worthen Arena this season when Toledo comes calling for a 7 p.m. first serve on Thursday ... Ball State will then hit the road for its final three regular season matches, starting with a Saturday showdown versus Akron at 5 p.m. in Rhodes Arena.

• SEASON TO DATE: Ball State enters the week with a 15-10 overall record, including a 7-5 mark in MAC play ... The Cardinals split a pair of home matches last week, suffering a Friday setback to Central Michigan before rebounding with a Saturday win over Eastern Michigan to move to 9-3 at Worthen Arena this season ... The Cardinals are also 3-6 in true road matches and 3-1 in neutral site contests this season.

• QUICK LOOK AT THE MAC STANDINGS: With four matches remaining in Mid-American Conference play, the Cardinals enter the week as the third seed in the league tournament with a 7-5 MAC record ... Bowling Green sits atop the league standings at 10-2, while Miami is second at 9-3 ... From there, the next six teams are separated by one win as four teams enter the week at 7-5 (Ball State, Buffalo, Ohio, Western Michigan) and two are 6-6 (Toledo, Northern Illinois) ... The Cardinals separate themselves from the 7-5 group with a 2-1 record in head-to-head competition ... Ohio and Buffalo are both 2-2, while WMU is 1-2 in the group.

• BALL STATE ALL-TIME IN THE MAC: Ball State enters Thursday's match versus Toledo with a 365-190 (.658) all-time record in Mid-American Conference play ... The only program with a better all-time league mark is Western Michigan at 377-178 (.679) ... Toledo is 11th all-time at 170-385 (.306), while Akron is ninth at 166-261 (.389).

• ALL-TIME AGAINST TOLEDO: While Ball State holds a 63-10 lead in the all-time series, Toledo enters Thursday's contest with three straight wins in the series including a 3-0 (25-23, 27-25, 25-16) victory in the first meeting this season played Sept. 28 at Savage Arena ... It's the first three-match winning streak in the series for the Rockets ... Ball State strung together a 42-match winning streak from Nov. 13, 1987 to Oct. 2, 2008 ... Since then, the Cardinals have won 12 of the last 19 matches ... Ball State holds a 30-4 advantage in matches played in Muncie, including a 22-3 edge in Worthen Arena ... Toledo, which picked up a 3-1 (17-25, 25-23, 25-22, 25-18) win in its last trip to Worthen, Sept. 29, 2016, has never won back-to-back matches on Ball State's home court.

• ROUND 1 VS. TOLEDO: In the first meeting this season, Toledo limited the Cardinals to a season-low .074 (38-28-135) attack percentage ... Junior outside Brooklyn Goodsel led the Ball State offense with 11 kills, while sophomore libero Kate Avila collected a team-high 20 digs ... The Rockets finished the match hitting .217 (39-14-115), led by 15 kills from Saige Thomas.

• ALL-TIME AGAINST AKRON: The Cardinals hold a 33-4 lead in the all-time series versus Akron, including three straight wins ... Last season, the Cardinals earned a 3-0 (25-20, 29-27, 25-17) win over the Zips on Nov. 6 at Worthen Arena ... Ball State picked up a 3-2 (19-25, 25-22, 17-25, 25-22, 15-9) win in its last trip to Akron, Sept. 26, 2015 ... The Cardinals are 15-3 all-time in matches played in Akron, with the Zips last victory in the series coming on its home court by a score of 3-1 (25-17, 25-19, 9-25, 26-24) Nov. 9, 2013.

• FOLLOW THE ACTION: Fans unable to attend Thursday's match versus Toledo can watch the contest live courtesy of Ball State All-Access at BallStateSports.com/Watch ... Live stats will be available for both matches courtesy of the home institution ... Fans can also follow the Cardinals on twitter (@BallStateWVB) for regular updates ... Links for Thursday's broadcast and live stats can be found above.

BALL STATE VOLLEYBALL QUICK HITS
• Ball State enters the week with a 9-5 record on ESPN3 this season ... The Cardinals own ESPN3 wins over Bradley (Sept. 1), Evansville (Sept. 14), Duquesne (Sept. 15), at Eastern Michigan (Sept. 22), Buffalo (Sept. 30), Western Michigan (Oct. 7), at Kent State (Oct. 13), Bowling Green (Oct. 20) and Eastern Michigan (Oct. 28) ... Ball State's next ESPN3 match will be the regular season finale at Western Michigan (Nov. 11).

• With a 9-3 record at home so far this season, the Ball State women's volleyball program is 257-81 (.760) all-time in Worthen Arena ... The Cardinals are even better when it comes to battling league foes in the building, owning a 186-49 (.791) advantage in MAC matches since Worthen Arena became the program's home beginning in the 1992 season.

• Ball State boasts an 886-585-2 (.602) all-time record in women's volleyball over 45-plus seasons of play ... The Cardinals have won eight MAC Regular Season Championships, six MAC Tournament Championships and made eight appearances in the NCAA Tournament.

• Senior outside Jessica Lindsey celebrated her senior weekend by putting together the best two-match performance of her collegiate career, leading the Ball State offense with 26 kills and a .344 attack percentage in matches versus Central Michigan (Oct. 27) and Eastern Michigan (Oct. 28) ... In Friday's loss to CMU, Lindsey tied her career high entering the weekend with 12 kills, while connecting for a .367 (12-1-30) attack percentage ... In Saturday's win over EMU, Lindsey smashed a new career high of 14 kills and hit .324 (14-3-34) to help ensure her senior night ended with a victory.

• Prior to her 26-kill effort this past weekend, Jessica Lindsey had not scored double digit kills in back-to-back matches in her collegiate career ... Her previous best kill total in consecutive matches was 18 when she scored six kills at Ohio (Oct. 16, 2015) and 12 kills at Kent State (Oct. 17, 2015).

• Kate Avila continued her strong play last weekend, leading the Ball State defense with a 5.80 digs-per-set average and a .964 (53 for 55) reception percentage ... In Friday's match versus Central Michigan (Oct. 27), Avila led all players and tied her career high with 36 digs while successfully passing all 28 serves she faced ... She followed with 22 digs and a 25-for-27 reception effort in Saturday's win over Eastern Michigan (Oct. 28).

• With her 58 digs last weekend, Kate Avila raised her career total to 996 which moves her to 17th in program history ... She is 18 digs shy of catching Kylee Baker's (2010-13) career total of 1,014 to move into 16th ... In addition, Avila has tallied 20-or-more digs in each of the last seven matches, raising her career total to 20 ... The 20 career matches with 20-or-more digs ranks sixth in program history and is four shy of catching Sarah Obras' (2002-05) career total of 24 for fifth.

• Kate Avila enters Thursday's match versus Toledo four digs shy of becoming the 17th player in program history to reach 1,000 career digs ... In 56 career matches, Avila has recorded 996 digs which is 260 more than the 736 Ball State's all-time digs leader Stephanie Keller (2001-04) recorded in her first 56 matches ... It took Keller 70 career matches to reach 1,000 digs ... Amanda McCormick (2005-06) is the fastest player to reach 1,000 career digs at Ball State, doing so in 43 matches ... McCormick, who transferred to Ball State after playing two years at Nebraska, is fifth in program history with 1,579 digs ... The only other Ball State player to record her 1,000th career dig faster than Keller is Alyssa Rio (2007-10), who accomplished the task in 55 career matches and ranks second in program history with 2,089 career digs.

• Despite suffering a 3-1 setback to Miami (Oct. 21), the Cardinals turned in one of the best defensive performances in program history by collecting 103 digs ... The 103 digs are a program record for digs in a four-set match in the rally scoring era (2001-present) ... The previous record was 100 digs in a win over versus Northern Illinois Nov. 15, 2002.

• In all, four Cardinals tallied double digit digs in the record-setting performance versus Miami (Oct. 21), led by 33 from Kate Avila ... Brooklyn Goodsel followed with a career-high 28 digs, giving Ball State two players with 20-or-more digs in the same match for the first time since Oct. 14, 2016 versus Kent State ... Also scoring double figure digs were junior defensive specialist Lauren Schreiner with 18 and sophomore setter Amber Seaman with 11.

• Freshman outside Kia Holder picked a great night to have a breakout performance, as she smashed a career-high 17 kills in the win over MAC-leading Bowling Green (Oct. 20) ... While she finished the night hitting .200 (17-9-40), Holder mimicked the Ball State offense by hitting .000 (7-7-25) over the first two sets, before improving to .375 (5-2-8) in the third and .714 (5-0-7) in the fourth set ... She also made an impact on defense, collecting five digs.

• With her career-high tying 21 kills versus Northern Illinois (Oct. 7), Brooklyn Goodsel became just the 17th player in program history to record 20-or-more kills in at least four career matches ... Goodsel also smashed 21 kills versus Toledo (Sept. 29, 2016) and has blasted 20 kills in two matches; versus Central Michigan (Sept. 23, 2016) and at Eastern Michigan (Sept. 22, 2017).

• Brooklyn Goodsel opened MAC play by leading the offense with a 5.14 kills-per-set average and leading the defense with a 4.57 digs-per-set average in wins at Eastern Michigan (Sept. 22) and Central Michigan (Sept. 23) ... With the effort, Goodsel became the first player in program history to average over 5.0 kills and 4.0 digs per set for a week in the 25-point rally scoring era (2008-present) ... In fact, Goodsel is just the second player in program history to average over 5.0 kills and 4.0 digs per set in a week in the rally scoring era (2001-present) ... The only other player to accomplish the task was three-time All-MAC First Team selection Sarah Obras (2002-05) who accomplished the feat eight times.

• With 24 kills last weekend, Brooklyn Goodsel raised her career total to 755 ... She needs 48 kills to catch Carin Zielinski's (1992-94) career total of 803 to break into the top 20 in program history.

• Junior outside attacker Ellie Dunn has picked up her play since MAC season began, averaging 3.07 kill-per-set in league play after posting a 2.60 average in non-conference action ... She has smashed double-digit kills in eight of Ball State's 12 MAC matches, including a season-high 19 in the league-opening win at Eastern Michigan (Sept. 22).

• Redshirt junior middle Meg Starling leads Ball State at the net and ranks sixth in the MAC with a 1.01 blocks-per-set average ... Starling entered the season with 27 blocks and an 0.58 career blocks-per-set average, having played in 46 of a possible 250 sets in her first two seasons ... So far this year, Starling has played in 72 of 97 sets and racked up 73 total blocks, including 19 solo stuffs.

• Meg Starling dominated at the net in the Cardinals' win over Idaho State (Sept. 8), finishing the match with a career-high 10 total blocks (two solo and eight assists) ... She is the first Ball State player to reach double digit blocks in a match since Haley Benson (2012-14) recorded 14 blocks (five solo and nine assists) in a 3-1 victory over SMU Sept. 21, 2013.

• Amber Seaman continues her climb up the Ball State record books, becoming just the 14th player in program history to eclipse 1,000 career assists versus Indiana State (Aug. 26) ... With 975 assists so far this season, Seaman ranks 11th in program history with 1,947 career assists ... She needs 403 more to catch Susan Franssen's (1987-90) career total of 2,350 for 10th on Ball State's career charts.

• The Ball State offense was firing on all cylinders in the Sept. 30 win over Buffalo, connecting for a season-best .396 (45-7-96) attack percentage ... It was the Cardinals' best hitting mark in a match since a .419 (55-11-105) effort in a home sweep of The Citadel Aug. 31, 2013 ... In fact, it was the team's fourth-best attack percentage in a match in the rally scoring era (2001-present), with the record being a .425 (51-6-106) effort in a sweep of Northern Illinois Oct. 28, 2005.

• Ball State opened the Active Ankle Challenge with a dominating 25-7 opening set victory over Navy (Sept. 1) ... The 25-7 set victory ties as the second-largest in the 25-point rally scoring era (2008-present) in program history ... The only larger set victory was a 25-5 opening set win versus Tennessee State on Sept. 3, 2010 in another match Ball State swept at home.

• Four Cardinals finished the win over Indiana State (Aug. 26) with double digit kills; Brooklyn Goodsel (12), Ellie Dunn (10), Meg Starling (10) and sophomore middle Sydnee VanBeek (10) ... It was the first time Ball State had four players log double digit kills in a three-set match since Nov. 18, 2008 versus Eastern Michigan ... The players involved in that match were Alisha Green (12), Julie Breivogel (11), Elaina Kakatolis (10) and Jennifer Boyd (10).