MARQUETTE — The Northern Michigan University volleyball team has been on a roll since the season began in mid-February.

The Wildcats are 5-1 and could easily be undefeated entering this weekend’s home series against Northwood.

NMU is coming off a home sweep of Wisconsin-Parkside, but it took a 12-0 run in the second set to give the ‘Cats the spark they needed to finish the job on Saturday.

Northern head coach Mike Lozier credited his middle hitters and setter Lauren Van Remortel with going back to the original game plan.

“I think it was our middles, so our middle hitters Meghan (Meyer) and Ania (Hyatt),” he said. “I think they combined for 22 kills and two errors in that match, which is a really impressive clip.

“We were down arguably our most effective offensive producer in Jacqueline Smith, she didn’t play. So we had to find other ways to win.

“We had a strategy going into it and I felt like in the second set, Lauren (Van Remortel) our setter, lost sight of our strategy and was just kind of improvising on her own. We had a good talk after the second set about kind of going back to what our game plan was and when we started doing that in the third and fourth sets, there was nothing they (the Rangers) could do about it.”

Lozier also thought the Wildcats’ serving was great and criticized himself for questioning it in the first place.

“I’m kind of kicking myself,” he said. “I’m getting a little ahead of myself, but after Friday’s match, we talked that we had missed a lot of serves. And I was talking to the team and just thinking out loud and I shouldn’t have said it, but I was like, ‘We’ve got to limit our serving errors.’

“So we talked about it and then going into Saturday, they were serving uber conservatively at the beginning, we were. Then after the second set, again, I told them this isn’t working. Like you have to serve tough, we’ll limit the consequences and that’s where Lauren Caprini got three aces and Madeline Crowley got five aces. All of us were serving so much more difficult and it was causing Parkside to not be able to be in system and it threw their entire game off.

“We looked after Saturday’s match and we have three of the top four aces-per-set athletes in our conference and then four of the top seven. So it means we’re a very good serving team and I’m an idiot for thinking that we should change anything about our serving strategy and I told them that. So this week, we’ll get back after it.”

Northern closes out its month-long homestand against the Timberwolves, who will be a different opponent from the Rangers.

“They’re much better than Parkside,” Lozier said. “They’re 5-1, so our division is super funky, the North Division. Us, (Michigan) Tech, Northwood and Ferris (State) are all 5-1 and Lake (Superior) State and Saginaw (Valley State) are 0-6. So you’re either 5-1 in our league, or you’re 0-6.

“So I’ve been watching Northwood all morning. They look very good, they’re fast. They actually mirror our offense a little bit, which is good for us because we go up against it every single day.

“I put this in the universe enough this week, that it’s OK, I’ve never lost to Northwood in my entire career. Whether I was at Grand Valley (State), Wayne State or Northern, and I don’t intend for that to change.

“But we have our hands full. They’re very good. This is the best Northwood team I’ve seen since I’ve started coaching at this level.”

With the success the Wildcats have had so far, one might think they would’ve entered the top-25 national rankings, but strangely, that hasn’t happened yet.

“It’s tough,” he said. “I’m a part of the ranking committee for the national votes. I can see how everyone else voted and oftentimes, people get really regionally biased. So a person in California isn’t interested in voting for teams in the Midwest.

“I try so hard to avoid that bias. I look at results, I look at the record, but ultimately, teams do what they do. You look and you’re like ‘Why the heck are all these teams being voted for when they’re clearly not good enough?’

“And I look at a team like Ashland or Tech or Ferris or even us at this moment, and I’m seeing the teams that are being ranked when results are coming in. And yeah, I do think we should be in the top 25 already, but it is what it is and we’ll just keep winning and let kind of that stuff play out on its own.”

First serve against Northwood is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Saturday at Vandament Arena.

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