Northwestern Volleyball has led a season with plenty of accomplishments. One of those said accomplishments is the team getting voted first in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) coaches’ poll for the third time since the start of the program. The poll takes place several times throughout the regular season and the past two times that the poll has been taken, NW has ended up as number one. The team has moved up the rankings in the NAIA coaches’ poll from fifth place in the preseason poll.They have also moved up the NAIA rankings in previous years, where they have finished in eighth place in the past two years.
“Winning a volleyball conference title in the Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) is very hard to do with the quality of teams in our conference. Our team has been a very closeknit group all season and have been great encouragers to each other all season long,” said Coach Van Den Bosch.
The team is also in good standing in terms of their overall win ratio with 24 wins and two losses. They had the first round of semi-finals on Wednesday, Nov. 8 and NW won, which secured their ticket to the championships. They also have a few leaders on the team in sophomore Zavyr Metzger, senior Macay Van’t Hul and junior Jazlin De Haan. Metzger currently leads the nation in blocks per set with 1.95 and is second in the nation with 164 total blocks. Van’t Hul is second in the nation in blocks per set with 1.41. De Haan is the league lead in kills per set with 4.72 as well as fifth in total kills at 373.
“We are excited to continue to work hard as we prepare for the national tournament,” said Coach Van Den Bosch.
