By By Nathan Vaughan, News Staff
Northeastern swept its final tournament of the regular season last weekend, defeating Central Connecticut State, Sacred Heart and tournament host Darmouth in Hanover, N.H., to improve to 7-5.
Freshman middle Nicole Bishop and junior outside hitter Caitlin Tittl were named to the All-Tournament team, with Tittl named the MVP. Bishop had another career match against Dartmouth with 16 kills and seven blocks. Her totals for the tournament were 34 kills and 16 blocks. Tittl had a career high against CCSU with 18 kills and 14 digs. She totaled 30 kills and 28 digs.
‘We all played really well this weekend,’ Tittl said. ‘It helped because everyone was doing everything really well. Our passing was good and our setting was good. We were just executing game plan and it lead to us all playing well. This weekend was really needed just going into conference this weekend.’
Northeastern opened the tournament with a 25-22 win Sept. 18 in a set that saw 16 ties with Central Connecticut State.
In the second set, Northeastern was down by as many as four points and could not recover as the Blue Devils won the set 25-22 and tie the match at a set apiece.
The third set was tightly-contested again, with the score leveling at 23-23. Junior Caitlin Tittl delivered two kills to win the set 25-23, and the Huskies built on that momentum to win the fourth set 25-19 and the match 3-1.
‘We just played with so much energy and so much consistency,’ Bishop said. ‘We were all strong with our hitting and with our digs and communicating. We were such a unit as a team. I don’t know if we could ever go down and play the way we did when we lost those two games.
In their second game of the tournament the Huskies took on Sacred Heart. In this one, the offense was evenly split with five people tallying at least five kills. In the first two sets Sacred heart never led with Northeastern’s lead ranging between three and seven. NU took both sets 25-19. Sacred Heart made it a little closer in the third set but couldn’t keep up with the Huskies. NU took the third set 25-21 to win the match.
In their final match of the weekend Northeastern took on the host Dartmouth Big Green. In the first set NU once again never trailed but the Big Green kept it close. Bishop ended the set with three straight kills and NU won 25-20. In the second set Northeastern jumped out to a big lead and never looked back, winning 25-17. In the third set the Big Green took its first and only lead of the match 4-3. NU rebounded quickly to take the lead 12-9. Dartmouth would not go quietly but a late run by the Huskies sealed a 25-18 victory to sweep the match 3-0.
Northeastern wraps up out-of-conference play at Solomon Court at 7 p.m. tomorrow when the team takes on New Hampshire, who owns a 13-11 all-time advantage over the Huskies.
