By Andrew Korba
The Ohio Northern volleyball team topped Carnegie Mellon by a 25-17, 25-27, 25-15, 25-18 score to move to 2-0 on the first day of the ONU Invitational.
Northern is now 2-0 on the season while the Tartans fall to 0-2.
ONU is also tied for first place after day one of the event with Trine (Ind.).
Junior Kristen Davidson led the way for ONU with 19 kills.
Senior Kelsie Zumberger had 48 assists to lead Northern.
Ali Celentano paced Carnegie Mellon with 15 kills on the evening.
The Polar Bears used a 6-0 run midway through Set 1 to take a commanding 14-6 lead.
Freshman Ellie Gillespie had two aces during the run to allow Northern to take Set 1 by a 25-17 score.
Trailing 24-22 in Set 2, ONU would get two kills from Davidson to knot the score up at 24-24.
Celentano would register a kill to give the Tartans a 25-24 lead, but senior Ellen Grenert responded with a kill for Northern to tie things up at 25-25.
Celentano would then put Carnegie Mellon up 26-25 with a kill and an attack error from Davidson gave Set 2 to the Tartans.
The Polar Bears came out in Set 3 and used a 5-0 run to take the early advantage.
They continued to build upon that lead and rolled to a 25-15 victory.
With the score tied at 5-5 in Set 4, a kill from junior Julia Fuerst sparked a 4-0 run to give the Polar Bears a 9-5 lead.
Northern would use another 5-0 run to build a 19-9 lead and finished off the Tartans with a 25-18 victory in Set 4.
ONU hit .254 for the match and registered 55 kills, while Carnegie Mellon hit just .112 and had 48 kills.
Ohio Northern will be in action again on Saturday when they begin play against Thiel (Pa.) at 10 am. They will then face off against Trine (Ind.) at noon.
