By: Nathan Vaughan, News Staff
Everything outside the volleyball team’s control this weekend seemed to go the Huskies way. As a result they are making their fourth Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Tournament appearance in the last five years.
Despite losing to James Madison University (JMU) 3-1 Friday, the Huskies still had a shot at making the postseason with a win Saturday against George Mason University (GMU).
“If you can’t handle that pressure then it will show,” senior captain, setter and opposite hitter Britney Brown said. “I think we have all taken the responsibility of what needs to happen on the court. As a leader I will never show that I am under pressure just for my team’s sake and to help my team out. We definitely knew what needed to be done this weekend.”
The Huskies lost the first two sets against GMU by scores of 26-24 and 25-20, respectively.
The Huskies came back to life in the third set, which was locked in a 24-24 tie. However, GMU made two costly errors, and Northeastern won 26-24.
Momentum carried into the fourth set with the Huskies jumping out to a 4-0 lead, and ultimately taking the set 25-19.
In the fifth and final set, freshman setter Ina Kamenova started the set off with three straight points. The Huskies won 15-11, and took the match 3-2.
Head coach Ken Nichols said he was pleased with his team’s performance in the victory.
“They [the players] all agreed they could do one thing better,” Nichols said. “Everyone did one thing better in the third game. Everyone did two things better in the fourth game. Then they played almost flawless in the fifth game. That is a big thing we will need against JMU [in the playoffs].”
In Friday’s match against the Dukes, the Huskies lost the first set 25-21, despite holding a 21-19 lead.
In the second set, Brown tallied four of her 22 kills to take the set 25-23, evening the match at 1-1.
After the break the teams still couldn’t shake the deadlock with the set tied 19-19 but JMU prevailed and won 25-22, and took a 2-1 lead.
In the fourth set the ball didn’t bounce the Huskies way as they fell 25-14 to lose the match 3-1.
“There was a ball that was hit out of bounds that was called in, a touch that wasn’t a touch, we made three errors in a row, there was a serve that hit the net and a hit off the block that we saw hit line but the refs said no,” Nichols said. “It reverted quickly to normal volleyball but we couldn’t recover from that deficit.”
After the weekend, the Huskies were involved in a three-way tie in the CAA. Northeastern, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and GMU all stood at 9-5 in conference play.
The tiebreaker went to wins in contests among the three, which Northeastern won to take third place, and VCU took the head-to-head with GMU giving them fourth place.
The Huskies will take on JMU Saturday at 5 p.m. in Delaware. If they win, they will face the winner of the VCU-Delaware match which follows the first match, at 5 p.m. Sunday.
Freshman outside hitter Janelle Tucker is looking forward to the team’s third matchup with JMU this season. JMU leads the season series 2-0.
“I’m really pumped,” Tucker said. “I believe the third time will be the charm. We are very excited to play them.”
