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Wildcats volleyball still dominates Michigan Tech

HOUGHTON – The Michigan Tech volleyball team is in a better place in the standings than it has been in previous years.

That place, however, is still not next to Northern Michigan University.

The Wildcats won a 10th straight meeting with their Upper Peninsula rivals in a 3-0 sweep, 25-15, 27-25, 25-14.

“One goes into a match to win, the other goes in not to lose. That’s part of the culture change we’re trying to create here,” MTU coach Matt Jennings said. “Credit to Northern, that’s been a winning program year-in and year-out.

“We’re still learning how to win and how to bring it consistently every match. We simply did not tonight and (NMU) did.”

With two weekends of home matches left for both, NMU is fighting for a top-four seed in the GLIAC Tournament while Tech, though still in it, is just fighting to make the eight-team field. The Wildcats demonstrated that gap in quality from the first serve Tuesday.

The Wildcats won the first three points and jumped out to an 8-2 lead when Jennings used his first timeout. It didn’t get better for the Huskies, who trailed by as much as 19-6 early. Of Tech’s first eight points, five were from NMU service errors.

“We just played hard. The kids came out and played aggressive, they played with a lot of intensity, a lot of just competing. That was what we were expecting from them,” NMU coach Dominic Yoder said.

Yoder, who was an assistant at Tech from 2004-05, is 14-2 against the Huskies as coach of the Wildcats, including 8-0 in Marquette. Tech’s only two wins against NMU in that span came on the same date: Oct. 31 of both 2007 and 2009.

When the dust settled on the first set Tuesday, NMU outhit the Huskies .360 to a minus-.074, as the Huskies had an equal number of kills and service errors – five.

Tech found a gear in the second set, but both teams spun their wheels due to an ongoing inability to get serves in. The teams combined for 12 errors in the second set alone, though the nature of those mistakes was different, Jennings said.

“There was so many missed serves, but if you noticed, we missed our first serve not aggressive, they missed their fourth serve after three aggressive serves,” he said.

This contributed greatly to a stretch of 15 consecutive sideouts, which combined with their standard rotation patterns, caused Tech to run out of substitutions late and try to finish off a 22-18 lead with an unconventional lineup.

NMU pulled three of those points back before a back-row attack violation made it 23-21, then tied it on a block from Alex Larsen and Kayla Chosa. Aubrey Ficek, stymied the point before, split two NMU blockers to give Tech a set point at 24-23, but the Huskies could not convert it. Lisa Studnicka’s attack early on the next point could only be overpassed out of bounds.

In the key 24-24 tie, Larsen delivered the Wildcats an ace Tech’s back row couldn’t touch, then a service error to even it again.

After a Tech hitting error, Studnicka aced the Huskies again to give NMU the comeback win.

“We missed a lot of serves, but as long as we’re serving aggressive, it’s going to work out in the end,” Yoder said.

NMU had six aces against 18 errors, Tech had one ace against 12 errors.

Tech didn’t have much left in the third. NMU ran off four in a row for a 10-6 lead and the Huskies couldn’t string together more than two points the rest of the way.

Madison Whitehead buried four kills in a seven-point run to turn the Huskies’ situation from dire to hopeless at 24-12. Anna Aycock finished it with a kill on the third match point.

NMU hit .483 in the third set and .322 for the match. Aycock had a team-best 10 kills, Whitehead nine and Chosa and Studnicka added eight apiece.

Middle hitters like Aycock, Chosa and Whitehead fared particularly well against Tech’s freshman middles, Lauren Emmert and Stephanie Dietrich.

“Offensively our middles did a great job when we were able to get them the ball. Defensively, Lauren hung in there, Steph is still catching up. We’ve been working with that over time with her. She’s a little raw in that spot and today they really exposed it against a good physical offense,” Jennings said.

Emmert, Dietrich and Ficek, an outside hitter, led Tech with six kills apiece.

The NMU defense got 15 digs from Alex Berger. Jackie Aird led Tech with 13.

Both teams play their remaining regular season schedule at home, starting this weekend with Saginaw Valley and Wayne State. NMU (11-12, 11-3 GLIAC) tied for third in the league, opens with Wayne State Friday. Tech (9-14, 6-8 GLIAC) plays Saginaw Valley first.

Though the Huskies are a game out of the last GLIAC Tournament spot, three of their four remaining opponents are below them in the standings.

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