Northern Michigan University’s Madeline Crowley prepares to bump during a match against Ferris State at the Vandament Arena on Nov. 9, 2019. (Journal file photo)

MARQUETTE — The Northern Michigan University volleyball team may be playing at an atypical time of the year, but it hasn’t taken long for it to find its groove.

The Wildcats opened their season last weekend at GLIAC powerhouse Ferris State, and after pushing the Bulldogs to the limit in a five-set loss Friday, they finished the job in four sets on Saturday.

In a Monday Zoom interview, NMU head coach Mike Lozier said what stuck out the most to him was how his team fixed errors and made adjustments.

“One of the biggest and most obvious things was the difference in hitting errors,” he said. “We had, I think, 24 more hitting errors than Ferris, which is an entire set’s worth (of points), right? So we literally gave them a set by making mistakes. So we talked a lot about understanding when we’re in system and you can be aggressive and take big swings and when we’re out of system, you’ve just got to try to get them in trouble and trust our defense.

“So from Friday (to) Saturday, there was a huge improvement. And then honestly, we are playing currently three freshmen and two sophomores. So that first set, when we lost 25-8, we totally chalked (it) up to nerves, being on the road, being at the six-time GLIAC champs-type situation. And then when we finally kind of settled down and realized ‘Hey, we could compete,’ it made it a lot easier. So I was really proud of how they made adjustments from Friday to Saturday.”

Speaking of those underclassmen, Lozier has been particularly pleased with how his freshmen have performed so far.

“We had Jacqueline Smith, on the outside, is leading the league right now in kills,” he said. “Ania Hyatt, who we didn’t know if she was even going to play this year. She was coming from a small town in Wisconsin with kind of very average to below-average volleyball competition. We were worried about her ability to get up to speed at this level and she’s done an amazing job.

“Angelina Negron, who we were not projecting to play this weekend, but because of some struggles that our other middle had, she got thrown in and she did a fabulous job.

“Top to bottom, with the youth we’re playing and what they’re doing, what they were able to do again in that gym was super impressive.”

Northern returns to Vandament Arena to open a six-match homestand starting with Saginaw Valley State this weekend. Lozier said the Cardinals are in a similar situation to the Wildcats due to their youth and that his team is going to focus on getting better more than what its opponent is going to try to do.

“We play Saginaw Valley and they graduated some really important pieces last year,” he said. “I watched some of their match on Friday and honestly, I really don’t know what to think. I didn’t watch (Saturday’s) match where they played, but they went up 2-0 on Northwood and fell apart a little bit.

“I expect them to have a lot of similarities to us. When you have a young team, they’re super eager to work really hard and so you have to find ways to kind of almost exploit their ‘work harder, not smarter’ mentality. Get them into positions where they feel like they have to do too much and then exploit that side of the game. So that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to watch the film, we’re going to watch those intense rallies and things that they’re doing consistently and finding the openings and ways to exploit that.

“You hope that we have a little bit of an advantage like you said being in Vandament and being in a comfortable space, but we’re just going to continue to build on our side of the ball more than anything because we are young. We haven’t had a ton of practice and every day is an opportunity to get better, so that’s what we’re going to focus on.

Friday’s match against Saginaw is at 4:30 p.m. and Saturday’s at 3:30 p.m.

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.