NMU Sports

Caught in a logjam

NMU volleyball part of 4-way tie for 3rd after split

MARQUETTE -- The Northern Michigan University volleyball team split a pair of matches last weekend and now finds itself in a huge logjam in the top half of the conference standings.

Playing at their home Vandament Arena, the Wildcats were swept by national No. 1 Ferris State before coming back the next day and winning in four sets over ninth-place Purdue Northwest.

NMU is now 11-11 overall and 7-5 in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. That puts Northern in a four-way tie for third place, smack dab in the middle of the cutoff for home court in the first-round quarterfinals of the upcoming GLIAC Tournament.

With every team having just four league matches remaining, the top two teams in the tie would take third and fourth place and earn those first-round byes, while the other two would slip into the Nos. 5 and 6 seeds and hit the road to play at Nos. 3 and 4.

The Wildcats are tied with Michigan Tech (12-10 overall), Davenport (15-7) and Saginaw Valley State (15-8) for third. None of them can catch league leader Ferris, which has yet to lose a match this season, and probably not second-place Grand Valley State, which is 10-2 in the GLIAC.

Behind the logjam are a pair of squads at 5-7, Wisconsin-Parkside and Wayne State. While these teams might be able to catch one of the third-place teams, it seems unlikely either would be able to overtake three of them that would be needed to slip into a first-round, home-court position.

NMU returns home this weekend to host high-flying Grand Valley at 6 p.m. Friday before taking on seventh-place Wayne State at 4 p.m. Saturday.

The Wildcats' regular season ends back on the road at Michigan Tech at 6 p.m. next Tuesday and at Parkside at 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 6.

The GLIAC tourney begins Wednesday, Nov. 11.

Here are details from last weekend:

Ferris 3, NMU 0

On Friday evening, the Bulldogs prevailed 25-19, 25-11, 25-11, and after the weekend are now 23-0 overall and 12-0 in conference.

Kaylie McIntosh led the Wildcats with 11 kills as she made a block, while KC Fortune added five kills and Larsen Bonnstetter four. Allie Barlow had 18 assists, the team's only service ace and three digs, while Lauren Cardwell and Olivia Ziemer each had four digs.

Attacking efficiency told the tale of this match, Ferris hitting at .409 while NMU was at just .125.

After the teams exchanged the first 10 points, McIntosh making two kills, FSU scored three straight points, then a little later, five straight, to take a 15-10 advantage.

NMU got within three but no closer in the first set.

The Bulldogs used a 6-0 run early in the second set to go ahead 12-4 and prevented Northern from scoring even two points in a row the rest of the set.

It was much the same in the third, Ferris going on a 7-0 spurt to take a 14-5 lead and NMU not getting much closer the rest of the way.

NMU 3, Purdue NW 1

On Saturday afternoon, things went much more smoothly for Northern as it won 25-20, 25-16, 22-25, 25-16.

Just as Ferris dominated nearly every team stat on Friday, the Wildcats did the same Saturday, including 55-36 in kills and 53-33 in assists.

Fortune led the NMU offense with 15 kills as she also led the defense, making a team-high 12 digs.

McIntosh pitched in with 12 kills and Anna O'Keefe 10 kills and three blocks.

Barlow had 43 assists and also a team-high four aces, while Bonnstetter and Laynie Russell joined O'Keefe in making three blocks. Taylor Smaka had three aces, too.

NMU hit a solid .270 while limiting the Lions to .134.

The Wildcats used a 5-0 run to go ahead 7-3 early in the match, Barlow being a one-woman wrecking crew with a kill followed by four consecutive aces.

Though the visitors answered with an 8-2 string to go up 11-9, the teams traded smaller bursts to end up tied 16-16.

NMU then used a four-point run, paced by a McIntosh kill and Russell ace, to get to set point at 24-19, which was finished off with a McIntosh kill.

Northern's 6-1 burst put it up 9-6 in the second set, Fortune and Barlow making kills. The Wildcats added a 4-0 run on pair of O'Keefe kills and a Ziemer ace to make it 15-10, then finished the set on a 8-2 streak that included Fortune and Barlow kills along with Russell and Barlow aces.

Purdue NW got back in it in the third, using a trio of 4-0 runs to go up 17-11 before NMU answered with one of its own to get back within 23-22. But the Lions then scored the final two points to take a set.

That might've spurred on the Wildcats, who used a 6-1 run to go up 9-3 in Set 4 with kills from Fortune, Russell and O'Keefe while adding in an O'Keefe ace.

NMU maintained a small lead until an extended 8-2 run made it 23-13. That spurt included back-to-back-to-back aces by Smaka, along with two kills from Fortune and one each from Russell and McIntosh.

After the Lions scored three straight, Russell made a kill to get it to match point, with an attack error due to a Bonnstetter block actually ending it.

Story contents based on a pair of Northern Michigan University Sports Information press releases reviewing the matches. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee's email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.