By Madeline Sattler, News Staff
A setter in volleyball passes to set up a scoring play similar to the way a quarterback throws a pass to a wide receiver in the end zone for a touchdown.
This season, setters sophomore Jillian Briner and junior Ina Kamenova have taken on this offensive responsibility for the Huskies, racking up a combined 626 assists in 15 games.
“The setter really is the quarterback and everybody understands that they are the ones dictating the tempo and trying to execute game plan,” head coach Ken Nichols said.
Nichols also explained that most teams run a five-one offense and only have one setter on the court at a time. Northeastern employs a different game plan that plays two setters at a time, each one contributing in different ways.
“Jill [Briner] as an attacker is phenomenal,” Nichols said. “Jill does a hurry-up offense kind of thing like football where the pressure is there all the time.”
Briner’s offensive abilities were evident in Saturday night’s 3-1 win against the Hofstra University Pride (25-14, 20-25, 25-15, 25-20).
She opened up the first set with a huge kill. She had 14 kills on 20 swings and added two service aces to her offensive totals. She also distributed 19 assists.
“I think I need to work on my blocking a little bit, but I think I did okay today,” Briner said. “I want to get my hitters better balls, so I get more assists and so they get more kills.”
Kamenova, on the other hand, makes the in-game adjustments that are so important to the Huskies’ game plan, Nichols said.
“Ina [Kamenova] has the ability to not only execute game plan, but make adjustments and she’s very good at it,” he said. “She gets the opportunity to settle things down, take a long snap and think things through.”
Kamenova led the team in assists on Saturday with 25. She also squeezed in a service ace in the second set.
In the opening of Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) conference play, Hofstra proved to be a test for Northeastern, as the Huskies dropped just their second set of their last 12, spanning four games.
In the first game, the teams traded points back and forth. After the Pride tied it at eight, Northeastern scored four unanswered points, capped off by a kill by Briner, who had six kills on six total attacks in the first set. Junior middle hitter Nichole Kurz came up with the game-winning kill.
“I think we came out a little bit flat in the first eight or 10 points that first set,” Nichols said. “Then, we got a little bounce from the service line and started playing with some emotion.”
Hofstra came off the bench with something to prove in the second set, scoring first and holding their lead. Junior outside hitter Kelly Bacon smashed six of her 17 attacks in the set, but the Huskies could not overcome the Pride.
“We kind of got a little cocky, I think,” Briner said of the team’s performance in the second set. “Once you start doing that, you start passing bad, then setting bad, then hitting bad.”
Hofstra again opened the scoring in the third set, but the Huskies followed with eight unanswered points. Briner and Kamenova continued to distribute the ball in the third set, combining for 12 assists.
Senior middle hitter and co-captain Nicole Bishop came up with a great block to stuff the Pride. Sophomore libero Natalia Skiba anchored the teams’ defensive efforts with nine of her 17 digs.
The fourth and final set opened with a point by the Pride but Briner anchored an 8-2 Husky run. In the end, Bacon pounded her 17th kill of the day before a Pride error gave the Huskies a 1-0 CAA record in 2012 conference play.
“We were very prepared because it’s our first conference match,” Kamenova said. “It was really good that we killed [Hofstra] in the first game and we play them again next month.”
The setters had major contributions as the Huskies opened conference play and will need to continue to do so as the season moves along.
“The setters work really hard because not only do they have to think about where the positioning of the ball has to be, but also who to set based on who’s on the other side of the net,” Bishop said. “They are such huge assets to our team.”
The Huskies will continue their eight-game homestand when they take on CAA opponents this weekend with a Friday night game against the University of North Carolina-Wilmington and then a Sunday afternoon game against the College of William & Mary. They will play UNCW at 7 p.m. and William & Mary at 1 p.m.
