The 2011 women’s volleyball team made their final regular season trip through the Upper
Peninsula and down to the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Coach Herron summarized,
“It was a calculated risk when I scheduled not knowing the complexion of my
team. We have had some hard losses and some good wins lately. We will be home
for three weeks before our Midwest Regional Tournament. I believe we have increased
the distance between ourselves and some teams and are working on decreasing the
space to the better teams. Three of the top ten teams in the National Ranking
are in our region, so it is no time to rest.”
The Lady
Pioneers started a long weekend with a trip to Finlandia on Thursday afternoon, October 6. Northland served very strongly and converted well on defense. The scores of
this match were 25-8, 25-23, and 25-18. The Lady Lions of Finlandia came back
strong in the second set to tie the score at 14-14 and at 21-21. Northland was
determined to succeed and played aggressively the rest of the game. Alyse Sugimoto ran
a very balanced offense with four hitters who had at least six kills each. Sugimoto gathered thirty-three
assists; she also had six service aces. Valerie Stauff had six aces as well. The
team then traveled five hours to the Mackinac Bridge for an overnight stay before
continuing south to the Tiger Invite in Grand Rapids at Grace Bible College (GBC) on Friday and Saturday, October 7 and 8.
Emmaus Bible
College was the first team up in the tournament for the Northland Pioneers. These
two teams played back in August with Northland winning a 3-0 match. “The second
time around with a team tells me a lot about how much progress we make. The
scoreboard is not the determining factor as much as how well we play in
system,” remarked Coach Herron. Good progress seemed to be
made by the Pioneers as they took a 25-13, 25-13, and 25-11 win. Northland had thirty-eight kills, hit .267, and scored eleven service aces. The defense came up with fifty-two digs
and converted a good percentage of those for points.
On Saturday
morning, the visiting Pioneers had an early match against the host Tigers. This
was a somewhat pivotal match for Northland and GBC because of its Midwest Regional Tournament seeding implications.
Ellie Hodak commented, “We wanted to play well and solidify our #4 spot going
in. We have some important matches at home but we had to take care of this
one.” Getting three aces and hitting .265 in
the first set helped the team keep momentum and the match ended with a score of 25-9 for Northland.
Set two had a 5-6 point lead for Northland, and the set went to the Pioneers
25-18. The Pioneers continued strong play in set three as they claimed a 25-12 win for
the match. Alyse Sugimoto again ran a very balanced offense with four players at six kills or more. Nine aces (four by Hodak) helped the effort, and a good defensive effort, including thirty-two digs, helped as well. Moody Bible Institute (#6
NCCAA) was waiting for Northland in the final match of the day. MBI served
and blocked well and forced Northland into unforced errors, taking the match
25-7, 25-17, and 25-11. Coach Herron summed up, “Confidence is not a skill. It
is something a player must apply to the talent or skill granted. No skill and no
confidence will only reap poor results. Some skill with no confidence will
produce an uneven performance. Good skill with good confidence will and should
produce a positive performance and results. If I had a magic potion for
confidence we would play better and maybe win more matches!”
The Northland
Pioneers play at home on Tuesday, October 11, at 8:00 p.m.; they then have seven more home
matches before the Midwest Regional Tournament at MBBC on October 28–29, 2011.The
Northland team is currently locked into the #4 seed going into the tournament. They have some
critical matches with Kuyper College on Friday and Saturday, October 14 and 15, home at the Pioneer Activity Center.