STEPHENVILLE, Texas (August 25, 2023) - It took the Northern Arizona volleyball team 15 matches last season before they would hit over .270 as a team. In the opening match of the 2023 season, the Lumberjacks hit .283 in a 20-25, 25-18, 25-19, 25-17 victory over host Tarleton State in Stephenville on Friday night.
Friday night's win is the first time since the abbreviated Spring 2021 season that Northern Arizona started its season in the win column.
Five different Lumberjacks: Sophia Wadsworth, Savannah Bloom, Kendall Robertson, Neche Newton and Karya Suvarioglu finished the match hitting over .300.
After dropping the opening set 20-25, NAU came out blazing in the second set, scoring the first four points forcing the hand of Tarleton State head coach Mary Schindler to take an early time out. Even after a 3-0 Texan run following the timeout, the Lumberjacks would never relinquish the lead in the set, winning eight of the final 11 points to close out the second.
"Tarleton hit a really high percentage in that opening set, and I think it was good for us as a young team to face some adversity, and we matched them the rest of the way," head coach Ken Murphy said. "We figured some things out on defense, it was great to see the team kept pushing to learn and get better as the match went on."
Defensively, after an opening set that saw Tarleton State hit at a .375 clip, NAU went to work, forcing the Texans to triple their amount of errors from two in the first set to six in the second. For the remainder of the match, the Lumberjacks kept the home team with a hitting percentage under .158 in each of the final three sets.
The third set would start in a very similar fashion as the second, with the Lumberjacks going on a 5-2 run with kills from Wadsworth, Newton and Hanah Stoddard that allowed the momentum to continue to swing in NAU's favor. Northern Arizona went on to finish the third set with 14 total kills on 38 swings. And just like the set that preceded it, Northern Arizona refused to give up the lead in the third set after an opening run.
In her first game as not only an NAU Lumberjack but in a new position, the Gonzaga transfer Stoddard, led the team striking 14 kills on 43 attempts. Wadsworth, who saw her first action since the 2021 season, matched her career high with eight kills.
"This was her first match playing outside hitter, and I think that she is only going to keep getting better," Murphy said. "As the season continues and her confidence grows, we are going to see even better things from Hanah. I think that as a team, we have a really great balance, and we want it to be hard to single in on one player."
A trio of Texan attack errors would lead to a 3-0 lead in the fourth set for NAU before the Lumberjacks would hit 11 kills in the final 22 points to shut the door to seal their first victory of the year.
"It feels good to get the first victory of the season," Murphy said. "The girls are very excited, starting off strong and getting through the adversity. It is early, but we definitely feel energized and are ready to go tomorrow."
NAU will close out their slate at the Texan Invitational tomorrow against Prairie View A&M and Arkansas-Pine Bluff. The two matches are scheduled for 7:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. MST. Both will be streamed on WAC International.
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