With expec­ta­tions high for the sea­son, the Bulldogs kicked off the 2010 sched­ule with a suc­cess­ful week­end at the Ferris State Invitational.

The Bulldogs, who were voted as the co-favorite to win the GLIAC North Division in the 2010 coaches pre­sea­son poll along with Grand Valley State, took advan­tage of open­ing the sea­son on their home court by going 3–1 on the weekend.

With a solid start to the sea­son, head coach Tia Brandel-Wilhelm was happy to get off to a good start.

“We’re pretty pleased to do as well as we did this week­end,” said Brandel-Wilhelm. “I think our team was able to get a lot of game expe­ri­ence this week­end and that’s some­thing that is impor­tant to us early in the year.”

Ferris opened the week­end tour­na­ment on Friday, as it cruised to con­sec­u­tive 3–0 vic­to­ries against Lock Haven and Glenville State.

But the cruise came to an end on Saturday as the team ran into nation­ally 18^th-ranked Minnesota State in the first match of the day.

Despite tak­ing the first set, 25–23, the Bulldogs were unable to keep the momen­tum in the sec­ond set, as Minnesota State broke a 22–22 tie late in the set on its way to a 25–22 set victory.

With the match dead­locked at a set apiece, Minnesota State took con­trol in the final two sets by grab­bing the third set 25–16 before clos­ing out the match with a 25–18 win in the final set to take the match 3–1.

After being handed their first defeat of the sea­son, the Bulldogs bounced back in their final match of the tour­na­ment by blank­ing Mercyhurst University 3–0.

Ferris took con­trol early in the match by grab­bing the first set, 25–19, as the team put up a .192 attack per­cent­age against the Lakers’ .080 hit­ting rate.

The sec­ond set proved to be more com­pet­i­tive, though, as the teams bat­tled to seven ties and three lead changes in the set. With the score tied at 18, Ferris broke away with a 5–1 run before Mercyhurst bat­tled back to dead­lock the score at 23.

The Bulldogs bat­tled back, as sopho­more Samantha Fordyce clinched the set vic­tory with a kill to take the set, 25–23.

Leading 2–0 going into the third set, Ferris took con­trol with 12 kills and four team blocks on its way to a match-clinching 25–15 set vic­tory to close out the tour­na­ment week­end with a 3–1 record.

Senior Arielle Goodson and junior Ashley Huntey, who both were named to the All-Tournament Team for the week­end, led the way for Ferris with 10 and eight kills respectively.

Sophomore Ally Brecht notched seven kills along with seven digs while junior Lisa Tobiczyk put up a match-best 18 digs.

Brecht said it was impor­tant for the team to bounce back in the final match of the day.

“It’s hard los­ing and going to play again after we dropped the match against Minnesota State,” said Brecht. “But we had to come back strong and a win was exactly what we needed.”

With the tour­na­ment com­plete, the Bulldogs will return to action this week­end at home as they begin con­fer­ence play with a Friday match against Northern Michigan fol­lowed by a Sunday tilt against Michigan Tech to close out the weekend.

“Every match you play in the GLIAC is huge,” said Brandel-Wilhelm. “We just need to be more con­sis­tent in the early sea­son if we’re going to get off to a good start in the con­fer­ence.” n