FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (September 13, 2023) – Seeing a Mountain West opponent for the second straight contest, the Northern Arizona volleyball team fell in the first of two consecutive matches with New Mexico in straight sets, 12-25, 19-25, 18-25.
"I thought we played a pretty timid match tonight," head coach Ken Murphy said. "Against a team that we think is pretty similar to ours, it looked a lot worse than it probably needed to be. Still, there are plenty of good things to build off of. I thought Millie [O'Ketter] had a good night on defense, and Kylie [Moran] had her best match offensively here at NAU."
For a second match in a row, the sophomore Moran recorded a double-double with 13 kills and 10 digs and finished hitting her second-best clip of the season at .393. Joining Moran with a double-double was Keira Hall with 16 assists and 12 digs.
O'Ketter recorded 12 digs in the defeat, one of three Lumberjacks to pick up 10 or more digs. The senior from Durango, Colorado, has had double-digit digs in seven of NAU's 10 matches.
New Mexico was off to the races in the opener, forcing Northern Arizona to use its first time out after taking eight of the first nine points. Falling behind 10-2, the Lumberjacks went on a small 3-0 run of their own to chop the Lobo lead in half on kills from Moran and Hanah Stoddard, plus a service ace from Jordan Cherniss.
Five would be the closest Northern Arizona would get to New Mexico for the remainder of the set as the visitors put up a hitting percentage of .438 in set one on the strength of 14 kills, with six coming from Kaitlynn Biassou.
Of Moran's 13 kills on the night, eight of them were struck during the second set, hitting .571 in set two with no attack errors to boot.
The Lumberjacks, after taking their first timeout in set two down by six, 13-7, would get back to within three at 19-16 before New Mexico closed out the second. The Lobos won six of the final nine points to head into the halftime intermission up two sets to none.
Set three would see Northern Arizona hit a match-best .258 and would stay with New Mexico through most of the third set, taking three straight points on three straight kills to force the Lobos to take a timeout down only by two. However, the team from Albuquerque would once again find its offensive game, hitting over .400 in a set for a second time in the match to seal the deal.
It will be a quick turnaround for the two teams as they will face one another on Friday night at the Johnson Center on the New Mexico campus. Start time is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. and will be streamed on the Mountain West Network. NAU will be looking for its first true road win at New Mexico since Oct. 18, 1980.
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