The
Northland men’s volleyball team began their competitive season with a Wisconsin
Volleyball Conference (WVC) pre-season tournament at Lakeland College. The Pioneer men competed
in the Division II section of this tournament, which had six of the eight WVC teams
competing. Coach Herron commented, “We
have been practicing for about three weeks, and you can only evaluate ability based
on the competition between your own players—we needed to play another opponent.
This opportunity would reveal strengths and weaknesses.”
Northland
International University would compete in pool play against Marquette (MU), UW–Whitewater (UWW), and UW–Platteville (UWP). The Pioneers played six sets in pool play and won the match 4–2 against UW Platteville and split with MU and UWW. Andrew Summers was the best attacker against
MU with nine kills. Josh Netz led the defense with eight digs. In the match
against UWW, Summers again led the way with eight kills. Netz played a great defense with nine digs. In the sweep of UWP, Summers had ten kills, Netz had twelve digs, and Bryce Guerrero had two aces. These wins put Northland
into the playoffs as the #2 team and pit them against Concordia (CUW).
Josh Netz
commented: “We are still finding ourselves. We have a lot of new players,
and some in critical positions. It will take time to learn to compete with our
opponent and each other.” Coach Herron followed with, “I think we have the
ability to play, but it is untested.” Playoff opponent Concordia returned five solid starters and showed great enthusiasm in welcoming Northland to the
court. The Falcons began well and had a 4–5 point lead. Northland tied the game
at 19–19, but a series of hitting errors and weak defense allowed CUW to take a
first set 25–21 win. In set two, CUW gained a 16–13 lead and pushed to 22–19 lead.
The Falcons eventually won 25–22. Coach Herron reflected on the game: “Much of our inability to take advantage
and score came in our offense, not so much our defense. We had a lot of ‘swing
waste,’ meaning we only hit .015 and had as many hitting errors as we did
kills. We didn’t have one hitter with more than .300 hit averages. We have no
middle attack to speak of. Some of that is
our passing, some is hitter’s efficiency and some is our setter choice and
competency. It is early and we will improve.”
Northland
International University ends the first semester academically and athletically with
a home match on Monday, December 5,against Michigan Tech
University at home in the PAC at 7:30 p.m. The team then will enjoy Christmas break; upon their return, they will host an all-day WVC play date in the New Year on January 28
in the PAC.