After three tough losses, Northwestern pulled out a dominating win against Mount Marty at Yankton, S.D. on Wednesday.
The overall score was 3-0, with sets of being 25-12, 25-12,and 25-14. This put NW at 4-3 in the GPAC and 14-6 overall.
“Mount Marty was a scrappy team, but we definitely out-powered them at the net,” said junior Claire Roesner.
The Raiders totaled a .310 hitting average for the match with 39 kills in 87 attempts. Junior middle hitter Megan Hutson led the team with a season-high 10 kills and hit .571.
The team also hit a season high 11 aces. Sophomore Alexis Bart had a match-high 10 digs, and was followed by Roesner with nine digs.
The Mount Marty game was a turning point for the Raiders, who were coming off a trio of tough losses.
Northwestern lost its third-straight match on Saturday against Midland in the Bultman Center.
“Volleyball is a game of emotion and excitement, and we didn’t show enough of that,” Roesner said, “which in turn caused us to come up short of the win.”
The match was tight, but NW had an early advantage and hung on for the win.
Set two looked similar with each team staying within three points of the other. With the game tied at 23, Midland earned two straight points to win the second set.
The Raiders were down 8-3 in the third set but rallied to gain the lead 14-13. Midland then scored six points to get a 25-20 win and make the overall score 2-1.
NW fought to get a fifth set but lost the deciding fourth game 25-19.
“We all had moments where we played great, but we also had moments where we lost our focus,” Roesner said.
The Raiders totaled 46 kills out of 152 attempts and hit .151 for the match. Floerchinger led with 15 kills. Sophomore libero Alexis Bart had a total of 24 digs and freshman setter Madeline Hanno added 26 assists.
The volleyball team will play again at 5 p.m. on Saturday against nonconference opponent Jamestown.
