BATON ROUGE, La. (August 27, 2021) – The Northern Arizona volleyball team struggled to find the floor offensively, and despite a spirited defensive effort, the Lumberjacks were swept by Florida State, 25-15, 25-14, 25-16, in the opener of the Tiger Classic on Friday.
In just two fewer total attacks, the Lumberjacks committed just one more attack errors than the Seminoles, but Florida State outkilled NAU, 45-21, resulting in a lopsided .235-.026 margin in the hitting percentage column.
"It had a lot to do with the way we handled first contact," said head coach
Ken Murphy. "We struggled in receive for a while. Defensively, I thought we did a good job and touching a lot of balls, but we weren't getting them into places where our setter could get to it and get our hitters good swings. Our number being low had more do with us not handling those parts of the game the way we'd like to."
Junior
Taylor Jacobsen logged a double-double in the 2021 season opener with 11 kills – tying her for the match-high – and 11 digs. However, the rest of the team had just 10 kills combined with sophomore
Jordan Elder next on the list with four.
While NAU's offense struggled, the Lumberjacks' defense kept them in the match for stretches. Elder's three blocks led a 6.0-5.0 block advantage in favor of NAU as Jacobsen, sophomore
Lyla Hollis and freshman
Sophia Wadsworth each totaled two blocks apiece.
Hollis, NAU's spring leader in aces as a frosh, popped open the new campaign with an ace on the match's opening serve. Hollis subsequently pressured the Seminoles into a pair of attack errors – the latter coming on a combo block by Jacobsen and Elder – to push the 'Jacks to an initial 3-0 lead.
Florida State scored the next five points though, snagging the lead in the process, and forced NAU to play from behind. The Lumberjacks kept it close though, and trailed just 11-10 following Wadsworth's first career kill, before the Seminoles pulled away with a 7-1 run. In all, Florida State closed with 14 of the final 19 points of the first set.
After Florida State went wire-to-wire in the second set, riding a 5-1 start to a 2-0 match lead, NAU played tough in the third game. The Lumberjacks held three early one-point leads and were even at 7-7 after a solo stuff by Hollis, but a crushing 8-0 stretch by the Seminoles put the third set out of reach. Still, NAU battled to seven ties and three lead changes before falling in three.
"Our defense is improving a lot right now," Murphy said. "We weren't locating it the way we'd like to, but we made Florida State predictable at times. That's definitely progress over the last few weeks and honestly, a flow that we never really go into last year. Obviously our standard is higher, so the next part is converting digs into points for ourselves. Our team is motivated to improve."
In addition to Jacobsen, Hollis and sophomore
Millie O'Ketter each tallied 11 digs to tie for team-high honors. Florida State held the digs advantage as well, 71-53, which played a huge role in NAU's lowest single-match hitting percentage since Sept. 15, 2017 at Hawai'i.
Originally slated to play a single match on Saturday and Sunday respectively, the Tiger Classic schedule was altered due to the uncertainty surrounding Tropical Storm Ida.
As a result of the rscheduling, the Lumberjacks will close the first weekend with a Saturday doubleheader beginning with a 10:30 a.m. MST matchup with host LSU. NAU's third and final match in Baton Rouge will come versus Michigan at 3:30 p.m. MST.
NAU's morning match versus LSU will be streamed online on
SEC Network+.
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