By Nathan Vaughan, News Staff
The volleyball team went out strong on Sunday’s Senior Day against Towson, winning 3-2. This was after a 3-0 loss to Delaware knocked it out of a shortened Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) tournament field Friday night. The Huskies finished 15-12 (8-6 CAA), fifth place in conference.
‘It was nice [to go out with a win],’ junior middle Jillian Robinson said. ‘We just wanted to play hard for our seniors. That was our main goal and we wanted to go out playing as hard as we can.’
Northeastern had eyes for revenge Friday after a 3-2 CAA Championship game loss to Delaware Nov. 24, 2008, and a 3-0 drubbing at the hands of the Fightin’ Blue Hens Oct. 10.
To start the match, Delaware jumped to a six-point lead. The Huskies were never able to get closer than three points. In the second set, Delaware started with a 9-0 run which sank the Huskies. The Huskies would not hold a lead until the third set, but the lead was lost five points into that set.
With no hope at a postseason bid and a head coach out due to pneumonia, the Huskies took on Towson hoping to send their seniors off with a win. Entering the match Towson had only one CAA win, a 3-1 victory in its CAA-opener against James Madison Sept. 25, and had only won nine sets in conference play.
The game began with the teams trading points to the 10-10 mark. After that Northeastern would lead by as many as eight going on to win 25-18.
In the second set, Towson came out strong. Northeastern eventually fell 25-22.
Towson used that momentum to jump to a 15-9 lead in the third set. Northeastern took a 9-5 rally to cut the lead to two but Towson was not about to let the set go and took it 25-20. This put Northeastern in the position of being down 2-1.
Provanzano and the Huskies were not ready to drop the Senior Day game and came out strong in the fourth set. They took a nine point lead at 18-9 and never let Towson any closer than six. The Huskies won 25-17, forcing a deciding fifth set.
The fifth set was all Huskies from the start. Northeastern would have runs of 5-0 and 6-1 to start off 11-1. With the set being only to 15 points, Northeastern rolled onto a 15-6 victory, taking the match 3-2.
‘I really tried hard to just treat it as another game,’ senior co-captain, setter and opposite hitter Jessika Tkachuk said. ‘We had no chance of making playoffs. I wanted to win out my senior year, that’s all I was really concerned about.’
The Towson match allowed new career highs:’ Junior setter and opposite hitter Britney Brown had 20 kills. Sophomore outside Lauryn Ciszec tallied eight kills and Robinson notched 15 kills.
With the last match of their careers concluded, senior co-captains libero Leah Neubeck and Tkachuk left their marks on the Northeastern history books. Neubeck is second all-time in digs with 1,758. Tkachuk’s 2,356 sets puts her at fourth all-time, a mere six behind former setter Suzana Stojakovic, who played from 1997 to 2000. Tkachuk also notched seven triple-doubles this season, good enough to be tied for the top in the nation.
‘Right now it is time to look back on the year and see what we did right and what we can change,’ Provanzano said. ‘I think the team will start looking forward to the future as soon as they have time. How we can keep everybody healthy will obviously be in the forefront of our minds next season.’
