By Jewel Della Valle
The women’s volleyball team continued to assert itself as a powerful force in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) with two more conference wins this weekend. Northeastern, picked to finish tied sixth with William ‘ Mary in the preseason poll, now has a legitimate shot at winning the CAA after defeating Delaware, who was tied for first in the CAA heading into the game yesterday.
The Huskies took sole possession of third place with a crushing defeat of Towson Friday night, and rose one more in the standings with Sunday’s heart-pounding win over Delaware, good enough to tie the Blue Hens for second place.
“It’s a great win. It’s a pretty competitive Delaware team and they took us out of the running for a conference championship last year so it’s a great win for us,” sophomore libero Leah Neubeck said. “We were passing and serving well, keeping the pressure on and executing game plan.”
Northeastern took game one of Sunday’s match with relative ease, winning 30-23, but surrendered to the Fightin’ Blue Hens in game two, going down 30-21.
Game three was a back-and-forth affair, with the Huskies keeping the lead for most of it and going up by as many as four points with a 13-8 lead halfway through. After a Delaware timeout, the Blue Hens came back to make it 17-17, before allowing the Huskies to go up 23-18, but came back again to take 27-26, 28-27 and 29-28 leads. A kill by junior opposite Sarah Stein gave the Huskies a 29-29 tie, and NU managed to rattle off the next two points for a 31-29 win.
Northeastern looked to take control for most of game four, but never led by more than three, and relinquished the lead late in the game. After the teams moved into a tie at 20, Delaware placed a kill that landed right on the boundary line that gave the Blue Hens a 21-20 lead, which they turned into a 30-25 game win.
With the match tied at two games apiece, both teams came out strong in the decisive 15-point game five. The Huskies went up 3-2, before Delaware came back, taking 4-3 and 6-5 leads, but the Blue Hens couldn’t keep it up. On a kill by junior outside hitter Lauren DeTurk, the Huskies made it 6-6, going up 7-6 on the next play and never gave up the lead. Delaware made it close, coming within one point three times and making it a tense 14-13 at the end of the game, but NU managed to pull out the 15-13 win for the match.
Head coach Ken Nichols said the win speaks to the caliber of play the Huskies are capable of.
“Clearly it’s indicative of the level we can play at,” he said. “I’d be very conscientious to mention youth because the fact is, we’ve been playing teams that are older and more mature and they’re doing the same things we’re doing, they’re on a roller coaster as well.
