Local Sports

NMU volleyball wins final match, squeezes into GLIAC home court

MARQUETTE -- As often can be the case, every single match counts in the end.

That's certainly the case for the Northern Michigan University volleyball team, which won the top spot in a four-way tiebreaker to earn home court in the first-round quarterfinals of this week's postseason tournament in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

The Wildcats set up the logjam by defeating Wisconsin-Parkside at the Rangers' court in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in five sets on Friday evening to finish at 9-7 in the GLIAC.

That same 9-7 mark was sported by three other schools -- Michigan Tech, Saginaw Valley State and Davenport.

In an interesting twist, the four teams tied for third place, i.e., the third, fourth, fifth and sixth positions, meant that in an eight-team tournament, the top two "winners" of the tiebreaker would host the bottom two in the first round.

And as the No. 3 seed, NMU gets to host No. 6 SVSU at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Vandament Arena.

Apparently, the tiebreaker was the teams' record within the matches they played against each other, and the Wildcats' was the best at 4-1. That was according to an NMU Sports Information news release detailing the tournament matchup.

The other 9-7 teams, Tech and Davenport, will play each other in Grand Rapids with Davenport getting the No. 4 seed and MTU No. 5.

The other first-round matches have No. 8 Parkside at No. 1 and undefeated Ferris State, while No. 7 Wayne State will be at No. 2 Grand Valley State.

Winners advance to the semifinals on Friday and finals on Saturday, to be hosted by the highest remaining seed, which in all likelihood will be in Big Rapids with Ferris hosting.

How close a call was it for Northern? If the Wildcats had lost Friday, they would've finished at 8-8 in the GLIAC and into what would have been a three-way tie for sixth place with Parkside and Wayne State.

And since it would've been a different set of matches involved in that tiebreaker, there's a chance NMU could have dropped all the way to the No. 8 seed and a first-round match at national No. 1 Ferris, which is 26-0 overall and 15-0 in league.

Wednesday's match is available to watch online at FloSports and also on radio station WUPT 100.3 FM The Point. Fans can also stay connected @NMU_Wildcats and @NMU_Volleyball on Instagram and X for updates, while a visit to the Northern athletics website at nmuwildcats.com and looking under the volleyball schedule will net links to live video, live statistics and a preview.

Luckily for Northern, overall records weren't used as a tiebreaker, as NMU is the only team making the tournament with a losing overall mark, even if it's just one game under .500 at 13-14.

SVSU is 17-11 overall after getting swept in three sets in each of its final two matches of the regular season, though they were to the league frontrunners Ferris and Grand Valley.

The Cardinals had an excellent 6-3 road record in conference, including a victory in their only match against NMU, a four-set win in Marquette on Sept. 19. In that match, the Wildcats won the opening set before dropping three straight.

Rachel Townsend leads SVSU with 329 kills, or 3.26 per set, while Jackie Scheiber had 221 kills for 3.07 per set. On defense, Marissa Roe leads the GLIAC with 98 blocks, with the team average of 1.98 blocks per set No. 2 in the league.

Northern senior setter Allie Barlow has been named GLIAC Setter of the Week twice this season and has 1,016 assists, No. 3 in the conference. She also leads the GLIAC with 50 service aces, while her 0.48 aces per set is No. 2, with both in the top 50 nationally.

Kaylie McIntosh leads the NMU attack with 338 kills, No. 5 in the league, while freshman Anna O'Keefe is second for Northern with 226 kills and another frosh, Layni

e Russell, right behind her with 211 to go with team highs of a .278 attack percentage and 62 blocks.

Squeezing between O'Keefe and Russell in kills is KC Fortune with 223, including 48 in her past three matches.

Here are details from the Parkside match:

NMU 3, Parkside 2

On Friday evening in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Northern had to come from behind twice before prevailing 20-25, 25-18, 23-25, 25-22, 17-15.

"Tremendously proud of this team tonight!" Wildcats associate head coach Kamryn Duffield said in an NMU Sports Information news release detailing the match. "Not only did we execute at a high level, but through immense pressure put on us by Parkside. Our block and defense did their job and gave us the opportunity to run our offense at a high level.

"We've put ourselves in a great position going into the GLIAC playoffs."

Match statistics were just about as close as the set scores would indicate. Northern had a two-point edge in points, one in kills and two in aces, while the Rangers prevailed by one block, one assist, and in the only one not really close, had a 10-dig edge, too.

In addition, the Wildcats had an attack percentage of .245 while Parkside's was .239. Percentages are calculated by subtracting the number of attack errors from kills and dividing into the total number of kill attempts.

As season leader, McIntosh had another big night on the attack, finishing with a match-high 20 kills while making two blocks.

Fortune added 13 kills, while O'Keefe had 12 to go with a nifty .407 attack percentage as she had just one error.

Barlow made 48 assists, 11 digs and an ace, while Lauren Cardwell had a team-high 14 digs and Taylor Smaka nine digs.

Larsen Bonnstetter led all players with eight blocks, while Sydney Bartels and Olivia Ziemer paced NMU with three aces apiece.

The match was quite competitive from the outset. Northern used a 4-0 run to take a 15-14 lead in the first set, its first lead since it was 1-0. That string included kills by Barlow and Bartels.

NMU briefly had a two-point lead, 19-17, but Parkside answered with seven points in a row to reach set point at 24-19. While a Rangers attack error saved one of those points, Parkside scored on the next to end the set.

The second set started the same way, neither team scoring more than two points in a row until the Wildcats went on a 7-1 run to go ahead 14-10. That spurt included a Fortune kill and Ziemer ace and five Parkside errors, though Bonnstetter was credited with a block on three of them.

Another 3-0 run made it 22-15, O'Keefe and Fortune making kills and Ziemer another ace, then NMU won the set on another attack error caused by a block from Barlow and Bonnstetter.

The Rangers took control in the third set with an 8-1 run to make it 15-8. Northern had a couple smaller runs to get back in it, pulling within 24-23 following an O'Keefe kill. But Parkside retook the lead in the match on its third set point.

NMU used a 5-1 run early in the fourth set to pull ahead 9-6, that streak including kills by McIntosh and Russell and aces by Barlow and Bartels.

The teams traded the lead after that until Northern went on an extended 8-2 run to go up 20-15. That spurt had four kills by McIntosh, two by Russell and back-to-back aces by Bartels.

With the Wildcats leading 24-21, Parkside saved one set point before McIntosh ended the set with a kill.

In the race-to-15 fifth set, the teams traded the lead at the outset before three straight points by the Rangers put them ahead 8-5.

Northern worked a 4-1 run to tie it 10-10, the string including a Bonnstetter kill.

Right after that, Parkside used its own 4-1 streak to get to triple match point, 14-11.

But NMU saved all three points on a kill by Russell, Rangers attack error, and a kill by McIntosh to retie it 14-14.

With a McIntosh attack error putting the home team up 15-14, Northern again reeled off three straight points to catch up and then win the set and match. That string included a UWP service error, Fortune kill and Parkside attack error caused by a block from Russell and O'Keefe.

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