Miami's Megan Griffin spikes during Saturday's game against Akron.
Coming off of their upset over Ohio University, the Miami RedHawk women's volleyball team came out swinging Saturday night, sweeping the Akron Zips in three straight games. Miami improved its Mid-American Conference record to 5-1, good for first place in the MAC East.
Though the RedHawks were unable to open up a giant lead in the first two games, the team held strong, as a different RedHawk stepped up in each game. The first game was led by senior middle hitter, Carli Reihman, and sophomore setter, Andrea Atteberry. Although the Zips made an attempt to come back late in the first game, cutting Miami's lead to just three points, the 'Hawks quickly pulled away with the game.
Reihman ended game one with a kill, giving Miami the 30-25 win.
The team continued on through the second game much like the first, as the 'Hawks were never able to open up a big lead, but again pulled away when Akron got close.
Up just 23-20, the RedHawks turned to sophomore middle hitter Megan Griffin to ignite the offense. Griffin did just that, collecting three consecutive kills, four overall in the game, as Miami would win seven of the last eight points to collect a 30-21 victory in the second game.
"Carli Reihman, my middle senior, did a great job hitting, did a superb job passing," Miami Head Coach Carolyn Condit said. "(Megan) Griffin, if you look at their hitting percentages, Megan did a great job tonight. Of course it takes a setter to put a ball in their hands, so Andrea made some very good decisions as well."
Before the third game, the teams went to their respected locker rooms to re-group before the third game.
"We talked in the locker room that we should be able to control our games more and keep our opponents to a low score," Condit said. "No one is going to help us do that so I challenged
them to come out and hold them under 20 points."
The team came out after their talk and did just that. Miami never allowed the Zips to get settled in game three, and with near-perfect mechanics took the game and the match 30-17.
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"I think we were able to do a lot of things tonight as a team," Condit said. "With playing some position players in different spots, which will help us down the road, and as a whole we got better each game."
Griffin, who was named player of the match, noted that the turning point of the match was after halftime when the
team came out of the locker room ready to play.
"We came out fired up cause we wanted to win in three," she said.
The RedHawks will have a week to practice before taking on their next opponent, Condit wants to focus on defense this week in practice.
"As a whole we definitely picked it up," Griffin said. "We definitely could have done better in the first two games; it was kind of slow for us. We need to play more to our level instead of going down. But we definitely picked it up at the end and made it more fun for us and it was just a better game."
The RedHawks will be at Millett Friday against Eastern Michigan and then again Saturday against Central Michigan.
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