Women's Volleyball | September 24

Box Score MOUNT PLEASANT, MI – The Northern Illinois University volleyball team opened Mid-American Conference play Friday night, falling 3-1 (24-26, 27-29, 25-14, 16-25) to the Central Michigan Chippewas at McGuirk Arena.
 
"In this conference, every match is going to be a battle," said head coach Ray Gooden following Friday's match. "Tonight's match definitely showed it. We did some solid things at times, but we had opportunities in the first two sets to turn it around and we have to learn from that and get better moving forward into tomorrow."
 
Katie Jablonski (Elburn, Ill./New Hampshire) led NIU with 19 kills, tying a season-high while hitting .296 for the match. She also tied a career-high with 19 digs. Setter Grace Balensiefer (Lafayette, Ind./McCutcheon) also had a double-double with 45 assists and 15 digs. Charli Atiemo (Milford, Mich./Farmington Hills Mercy) also had double-digit kills on the night with 10.
 
NIU (6-5, 0-1 MAC) bounced back from an early 3-0 deficit in the opening set to take an 11-8 lead on a kill from Jasmine Kemp (DeKalb, Ill./DeKalb). Central Michigan came back to tie the set at 14-14 but the Huskies re-gained the advantage on two more Kemp kills that put the Huskies up 18-16. Two kills from Linnea Willer sparked a 3-0 Chippewas run that put Central Michigan ahead 19-18. Ella Mihacevich (Brunswick, Ohio/Padua Franciscan) put down a kill to tie the set at 19 and the two teams traded points up to 24-24. A Savannah Thompson kill and an NIU error gave the Chippewas the opening set 26-24.
 
Central Michigan (7-6, 1-0 MAC) used a 10-1 run in the second set to take a 17-11 lead. Down 20-14, NIU rallied back with six straight points to tie the set at 20 on back-to-back Mihacevich service aces. Just like in set one, the two teams traded points late until an NIU service error and hitting error put the Chippewas up 2-0 with a 29-27 win in set two. The Huskies fought off six set points in the first two sets without having one of their own.
 
NIU got out to a very fast start in set three, winning eight of the first 10 points by forcing five Central Michigan errors. The Chippewas closed to within four at 12-8 following kills from Thompson and Linnea Willer. The Huskies answered right back with four unanswered points as back-to-back aces from Francesca Bertucci (Chicago, Ill./De La Salle) put NIU up eight at 16-8. Central Michigan only got as close as six points for the remainder of the set. NIU hit .289 in the third, and held Central Michigan to .054, to take it 25-14 as a kill and a block from Kemp on the final two points kept the Huskies in the match.
 
"I was telling the team that we can't play passive and beat a team in the MAC," Gooden said. "We were going to have to take some risks and really go out and battle. We got a nice service run from Ella and made some really good plays to take the set."
 
The Chippewas used a 5-1 run early in the fourth to take a 9-6 lead on consecutive Thompson aces. NIU came back and got within one at 10-9 on a Nikolette Nedic (Willowbrook, Ill./Hinsdale Central) kill. Central Michigan responded by taking six of the seven points to go ahead 16-10 on a Thompson kill. The Huskies were able to cut the Chippewas' lead in half at 18-15 on kills by Jablonski and Nedic. That would be as close as NIU would get. Central Michigan won seven of the last eight points to win the set 25-16 and the match 3-1.
 
NIU hit .233 in the match to Central Michigan's .243. The Huskies held a slim 85-84 edge in digs and a 7.0-4.0 advantage in blocks. Willer led all players with 22 kills as Thompson had 14 kills and 18 digs.
 
The two teams wrap up their weekend series on Saturday at 5 p.m. CT.
 
--NIU--