HONOLULU, Hawaii – The Northern Arizona volleyball team stepped up in their second showing of the weekend versus Hawai'i, but could not overcome a series of big runs by the home team in an eventual 25-14, 25-12, 25-12 loss to the reigning Big West Champions Saturday night.
The Lumberjacks were victims to runs of 9-2 (first set), 14-2 (second set) and 11-3 (third set), but otherwise showed vast improvement from the night before. Hawai'i hit nearly a 100 points lower and saw its ace total sliced in half, leading to NAU's increased dig and block totals.
"Our overall level of play was significantly better tonight," said head coach
Ken Murphy. "We received serve better, we defended better and we really impacted the match in ways that we couldn't yesterday. I was proud of our turnaround."
Just like the night before, NAU found itself in a big hole to open the match with Hawai'i racing out to a 9-2 advantage before the Lumberjacks called a timeout. Although redshirt junior
Kaylie Jorgenson got into an offensive groove late in the set – she had four first set kills – NAU was never able to recover from its early deficit. Still, the Rainbow Wahine only hit .220 – lower than any of Friday's three sets.
Locked into the tightest set of the weekend, Hawai'i ripped the second set away from NAU by scoring 14 of the final 16 points heading into the intermission. However, the set two score did not tell the whole story as NAU trailed just 11-10 and was knotted up with Hawai'i on five occasions before the Rainbow Wahine's roll. Spurred by sophomore
Abby Akin, the 'Jacks recorded three early blocks to spark the Blue & Gold.
Even with Jorgenson putting down five kills in the third set, NAU could not prevent the sweep despite another strong start. Following freshman
Heaven Harris' kill off the Hawai'i block which brought NAU within 8-5, the Rainbow Wahine doubled their lead to 14-8 prompting a Lumberjack timeout. Redshirt sophomore
Victoria Ewalefo and redshirt freshman
Kasie Gilfert combined for a block out of the stoppage, but NAU could not get closer than five the rest of the way.
Jorgenson paced NAU offensively with 10 kills. Defensively, junior
Jordan Anderson and freshman
Krystina Brice – making her first career start – both totaled a team-high nine digs. Akin recorded four blocks while Gilfert matched her season-high of three stuffs as NAU notched 6.0 team blocks.
NAU, now 4-7 overall, will now take on the Big Sky portion of its schedule starting next Thursday, Sept. 21 at home versus Northern Colorado at 7 p.m.
"The quality of competition and the adversity we've already faced has helped our team become so resilient," Murphy said. "We're learning what we're capable of and the consistent effort we're going to need to have to have the success we want. This team is so excited for the start of conference and applying what we've learned so far."
