The Northwestern volleyball team hits the road this weekend, and it has reason to get homesick in a hurry.
The Cats (4-10, 1-3 Big Ten) are winless in eight games away from Welsh-Ryan Arena this season. And after two subpar performances against Wisconsin and Ohio State last week, NU can start climbing out of the conference cellar with a win today at Iowa (7-5, 3-1).
Unfortunately for NU, the Hawkeyes have been rolling lately. They won their first three matches in Big Ten play this season before losing to Penn State Saturday.
“Iowa’s playing some very good volleyball right now,” NU coach Keylor Chan said. “They beat Indiana and they beat Illinois, and those are some big wins for them. They traditionally haven’t been good the last five or six years but they’ve made a big upswing.”
NU also travels to Minneapolis to take on No. 5 Minnesota (15-0, 4-0) on Saturday.
Sara Meyerman leads Iowa with 3.53 kills per game. Renee Hill averages 2.95 digs per game for the Hawkeyes defensively.
NU needs to bounce back this weekend after two bad losses in a row. The Cats played flat against Ohio State Saturday, and that followed a lethargic showing at Wisconsin Sept. 27.
Senior Traci Lato said the Cats exuded a positive attitude this week in the gym.
“We did some different things in practice and had a lot more fun than we’ve been having,” Lato said. “We need to relax when we’re on the court and just get the job done.”
Freshman Erika Lange leads the NU net attack with 3.3 kills per game. Her 67 total blocks rank third in the Big Ten.
Senior Carmen Burbach needs only 46 digs to become the seventh player in NU history to post 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs in a career. She reached 1,000 kills on Sept. 10 versus Hawaii.
Chan said the team had a good week in practice, but he won’t be pleased until the Cats transfer that type of play to game situations.
“The true test will be on Friday, ” Chan said. “It’s a very important weekend for us. Whether it’s a win or a loss is not the concern. It’s just playing the best we can play, and showing that on a daily basis.”
Minnesota enters the weekend riding the longest win streak in school history — and the longest current streak in the country. The Gophers also reached the round of eight in last season’s NCAA tournament.
At 5.23 kills per game, senior Nicole Branagh is a force to be reckoned with at the net. But middle hitter Stephanie Hagen was the Gophers player named AVCA/Sports Imports National Player of the Week for her part in Minnesota’s wins over Penn State and Illinois last week.
“Minnesota is Minnesota — they’re very good this year,” Chan said. “They’re a top-five team, they haven’t lost a match. We have our hands full with them.”
Errors plagued the Cats in their last two losses, and Chan said that’s a problem the team talked about this week.
“We hurt ourselves with errors, and that’s the mark of a young team and an inexperienced team,” Chan said. “We need to play with a lot more energy. If we can bring that into it, the execution will follow — one precedes the other.”
Chan gave the team some time off this week to gain perspective on the last two games. Now he’s wondering how his team will respond on the court this weekend.
“We had an up, we had a down, and now we see if our team can battle back and climb back up,” Chan said. “It’s a crossroads in our program. We’ll see if our girls are going to fight back.”