DeKALB, IL – The Northern Illinois University volleyball wrapped up its 2019 home slate Thursday night, falling in three sets 18-25, 20-25, 17-25 to the Western Michigan Broncos at Victor E. Court.
"We had a slow start in the beginning, but that's a credit to Western Michigan and their block did a good job blocking us to start the night," said head coach
Ray Gooden. "I thought we were doing some pretty good things when we were in system. It's just the errors seemed to be our nemesis tonight."
NIU (8-21, 5-10 MAC) hit just .057 for the match as the Broncos hit .267 for the match and had 10 blocks. Senior
Brinley Milbrath (Cedar Rapids, Iowa/John F. Kennedy) led the Huskies with 12 kills and hit .259 for the match. It was her third straight match with double-digit kills.
Miranda Karlen (Evansville, Wis./Evansville) had a match-high 19 digs and three aces.
Western Michigan (14-13, 5-10 MAC) opened the match with a 9-3 run capped by a Rachel Bontrager ace. NIU cut the Broncos' lead in half with kills from
Jasmine Kemp (DeKalb, Ill./DeKalb) and
Grace Balensiefer (Lafayette, Ind./McCutcheon) and a Karlen ace that made the score 9-6. The Huskies got as close at two points at 15-13 before a Charley Andrews kill started a 5-0 Western Michigan run that put the visitors ahead 20-13. The Broncos won four of the last five points in the set to win it 25-18.
The Huskies fell behind early in set two but took advantage of some Western Michigan miscues to go on an 8-2 run punctuated by consecutive blocks from Milbrath and Kemp to take an 11-10 lead. Western Michigan won the next three points as kills from Bontrager and Willow Martin gave the Broncos a 14-11 lead. NIU was able to tie the set at 16 with a
Kaitlyn Bell (De Soto, Kan./De Soto) kill, but an Andrews kill started a 7-1 Western Michigan run that put the Broncos up 23-17. Meredith Phillips came up with the kill on set point that gave the Broncos the second set 25-20 and a 2-0 lead in the match. Western Michigan jumped out to an 8-2 lead in the third and didn't look back. The Broncos hit .500 in the frame and won it 25-17 to complete the sweep.
NIU closes the regular season on Saturday, November 16 at Bowling Green. First serve is at 4 p.m.
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