North Michigan News

Trailing 2-0 after losing the first two sets 18-25, the Northern Michigan volleyball team staged a comeback against Davenport. They won the next three sets with scores of 25-12, 25-19, and 16-14 to secure a victory in Caledonia, Michigan.

This win improved Northern's record to 17-8 overall and 11-4 in conference play, ensuring them a top-four seed in the upcoming GLIAC Tournament starting November 20.

Jacqueline Smith led Northern's offense with 21 kills. Kaysie Bakke added another 12 kills while Meghan Meyer contributed ten with a .409 hitting percentage and led the team with three aces. "Davenport came out hot and we weren't ready to play," Meyer commented after the match. "It took us longer than we wanted to get going, but we leaned on each other and battled through and pulled out a win."

The Wildcats had an overall hitting percentage of .267 compared to Davenport's .192. Liesl Haugen topped Northern's defense with 23 digs as part of their total of 89 for the match, marking their second-highest this season.

In the opening set, NMU initially trailed but managed to take a brief lead at 11-10 before Davenport closed it out at 25-18. The second set followed a similar pattern with NMU taking an early lead only for Davenport to claim it again at the end by scoring four consecutive points.

Northern found its rhythm in the third set by maintaining control throughout and winning comfortably at 25-12. The fourth set saw NMU take an early lead which they held onto for a final score of 25-19.

The decisive fifth set was tightly contested; NMU switched sides leading at 8-5 but faced pressure when DU tied it up at twelve all. After saving match-point at fourteen all due to an opponent’s service error, McKenzie Gruner delivered a kill followed by Allie Barlow securing victory with one of her career-high eight kills.

For Davenport Panthers' Abby Alan recorded twenty-one kills while Emma Turnquist led serving efforts contributing four aces towards their total advantage over NMU (10–8).

Looking ahead into their schedule: Northern Michigan will face Lake Superior State on Friday November fifteenth before concluding regular-season play against Saginaw Valley State on Saturday November sixteenth.