By Jewel Della Valle
After winning six of their last seven games, the Huskies lost a match to Hofstra Saturday, dropping to 0-2 on the season against the Pride.
The match was a tough defeat, with NU and Hofstra battling it out for the full five games. After taking a commanding 21-14 lead in game one, the Huskies allowed Hofstra to rattle off a 9-4 run, forcing a tie at 29 late in the game. Two kills by the Pride made it 31-29 putting them up 1-0 in the match.
The Huskies took another big lead in game two, going up 24-13, and kept the Pride at bay, winning 30-24 on a Hofstra service error. NU went up early again in game three for a 14-9 lead, but the Pride went on a 6-0 run to go ahead 15-14. The Huskies came back to win the game, taking a 21-20 lead on a kill by senior captain Kira Batura.
Game four was the match’s pivotal game, and one the Huskies should have won, Batura said.
The game was a close battle, characterized by ties and close plays. The game saw ties at 8, 15 and 25. Northeastern broke a tie at 28 with a kill by junior outside hitter Lauren DeTurk before Hofstra went up 30-29. The Huskies continued to force ties and fight off game points (30-29, 31-30, 32-31, 33-32, 34-33 and 35-34), before Hofstra iced the game at 36-34 with a service ace from sophomore Monica Knight.
“[Game four] was the game that we needed,” Batura said. “It went into the fifth game and we knew that we had to come out strong and give it everything [and] not play tentative. [We knew we had to] just give it our all like it’s our championship game because every game and every match that we play now is going to help us with what place [in conference] we get.”
Northeastern battled to keep it close in game five, but never led the contest. Hofstra took a 3-1 lead at the start, and had a 14-9 advantage late in the game. Northeastern struggled to catch up, rattling off three points to make it 14-12, but the Pride retaliated with a kill by junior Talita Silva to win the game 15-12, and the match.
One chief obstacle for the Huskies was that Hofstra switched back to using senior Shellane Ogoshi as its primary setter, head coach Ken Nichols said.
“She’s a former conference player of the year, prior to that the Setter of the Year and she makes a tremendous difference on that team,” he said. “Regardless of their current win-loss, she makes them much stronger; she was a bigger factor in the match. We had opportunities in the first game, we were up a couple points and she did a couple things at that end there that were pretty special to give them that win.”
Northeastern was just barely out hit by the Pride, with a team .217 attacking percentage to Hofstra’s .239 attacking percentage. The Huskies tallied seven service aces to Hofstra’s three, and had two less service errors, but it was the little things that got in the way of Northeastern’s victory, Batura said.
“It was just little mistakes here and there from hitting the ball out, and then serving and passing,” she said. “It wasn’t just one thing this match, which I guess you could say is better than the last time we played Hofstra, when our serving was what took us out of the game. This time it was just a lot of the little things that added up.”
Batura and DeTurk continued to headline NU’s offense, both taking home double-doubles. They totaled a team-high 14 kills apiece, while Batura tallied 20 digs and DeTurk had 14. Sophomore setter Jessica Tkachuk and freshman setter Britney Brown also had double-doubles.
With the loss, NU (13-12, 5-3 Colonial Athletic Association (CAA)) moves into a four-way tie for third with James Madison, Hofstra and George Mason. The Huskies travel to William ‘ Mary (11-11, 6-3 CAA), Friday to take on the second-place Tribe at 7 p.m., before heading to Virginia Commonwealth (7-16, 3-6 CAA) to take on the eighth-place Rams Saturday at 5 p.m.
