There’s no place like home. Just ask first-year Northwestern volleyball coach Keylor Chan.
After starting the season 0-7 on a 12-day road trip, the Wildcats (3-7) won three matches Friday and Saturday in the Hampton Inn and Suites Wildcat Classic at Welsh-Ryan Arena. The event was theteam’s first homestand of the season.
The Cats swept Towson (2-8), Buffalo (2-7) and Cleveland State (6-4) to take first place in the four-team tournament and get Chan in the win column for the first time as NU’s head coach.
Freshman Erika Lange was named MVP of the tournament after recording 17 kills Saturday against Cleveland State. Senior co-captain Carmen Burbach and sophomore Sarah Ballog were the Cats other all-tournament performers.
NU downed Towson 3-2 Friday and won 3-1 matches over Buffalo and Cleveland State on Saturday to break out of its losing streak.
“We’re a young team and a new coaching staff, so everybody’s still getting acquainted with each other,” said Chan, who took over as NU’s head coach in early June after former coach Kevin Renshler left for Auburn.
With games at Nebraska, Colorado State and Hawaii — all three ranked in the top-four nationally — the early season road trip was no late summer vacation for the Cats.
Chan knows that kind of scheduling might not fill up his slate with wins, but he said in the long run the Cats will be a better team because of it.
“Hopefully it’ll prepare us for the Big Ten,” Chan said. “It was a very hard schedule, probably the hardest schedule in the nation.”
NU also visited Georgia and University of California-Irvine on the trip.
Burbach carved one smooth spot out of the rough road trip. On Sept. 10 against Hawaii she became the 15th player in NU history to record 1,000 career kills.
“I didn’t even know it happened when it happened,” Burbach said. “It’s exciting. When I look back I think, ‘Did I really have that many?'”
Burbach is also on track to surpass the 1,000-dig mark later this year. She would be the seventh player in Wildcat history to register 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs in a career.
“It’s special,” Chan said. “Not many players get to do something like that.”
Lange, a 6-foot-3 middle blocker, has given Chan reason for optimism with her play thus far. She led the Cats in kills (75), hitting percentage (.246) and total blocks (32) in her first seven collegiate games.
“Erika Lange is coming around at a real nice pace,” Chan said.
On Saturday night the Cats faced off against Cleveland State fresh off of the Towson and Buffalo wins, and they picked up right where they left off.
NU took control early, riding a 7-0 run on freshman Molly Kamp’s serve to a 15-6 win in Game 1. The Cats also jumped out to an 11-4 lead in Game 2 behind blocks up front by Kamp and Ballog and an outright stuff block by Lange at 9-4.
Despite a Cleveland State rally to take the second game, nifty net work by NU’s Kelli Meyer jump-started the Cats to a 7-0 lead in Game 3. They never lost momentum from that point on, winning the third game, 15-5, and Game 4, 15-6.
Chan said there’s still some room for improvement after the Cats’ strong showing at home Friday and Saturday.
“We need to execute better on serve-receive, which is passing,” Chan said. “Our passing has been suspect at times, but it’s been much better than it was a week ago.”
The Cats finished the 12-day road trip in Hawaii for the Aston’s Imua Wahine Challenge, but they might as well have been in Yuma. Burbach said everybody was tired and ready to come home.
After the matches Friday and Saturday in Evanston, they might not ever want to leave.