By Journal Sports Staff

MARQUETTE — The Northern Michigan University volleyball team moved within a half-game of the final GLIAC Tournament spot with a back-and-forth, five-set victory over Lake Superior State on Saturday afternoon.

The Wildcats improved to 15-9 overall and 4-9 in the conference and are in ninth place in the GLIAC, a half-game behind 4-8 Wisconsin-Parkside. The top eight teams advance to the tourney that starts with quarterfinal matches at the top four seeds on Wednesday, Nov. 7.

NMU has three more regular-season matches remaining, all in league and all on the road — at second-place Michigan Tech at 7 p.m. Friday, at 10th-place Northwood on Friday, Nov. 2, and at league leader Ferris State on Saturday, Nov. 3.

Saturday’s victory was the Wildcats’ fifth in their last six matches, though three of the wins were nonconference ones at the Midwest Region Crossover last weekend. They downed the Lakers 25-15, 23-25, 25-17, 21-25, 15-5.

Senior Autumn Monsma led Northern with 18 kills and 28 assists, while senior Jessica Skonning added 14 kills and junior Sarah Kuehn had 12. Senior Maggie Liebeck had eight kills and senior Lynzi Svoboda six.

Svoboda also posted her fourth match of the season with over 50 assists, finishing with 53.

Freshman Alli Yacko tallied four service aces to aid the effort while sophomore Cierra Martinez had three and Svoboda two.

Defensively, senior Rachel Braunschweig finished with 23 digs, Yacko 16 with Svoboda 11. Svobobda also led the team with eight blocks as Kuehn totaled six, Martinez five and Liebeck two.

NMU used a 10-2 run to roll to a 13-6 lead in the first set and go up a set in the match. But LSSU (5-19, 2-11) came back after trailing through most of the second set, scoring the final four points on a pair of Northern attack errors and two kills by Amanda Reid.

The Wildcats again established the lead by taking the third set, using a 6-2 run to break an 8-8 tie and never trailing again.

Then the Lakers used a 6-0 run in the middle of Set 4, holding off a late run by NMU that included kills by Kuehn and Monsma, to force the fifth and deciding set.

Northern held a tenuous 4-3 lead early in the final set, but finished with an 11-2 flourish that included three kills by Monsma, two by Kuehn and one by Svoboda, along with a Yacko service ace.

The Wildcats also honored their seven seniors prior to the match — Liebeck, Svoboda, Braunschweig, Monsma, Skonning, Kaila Mathews and Janie Torola.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.