After having its match cancelled by bad weather earlier this year, No. 11 Northwestern (11-4, 5-0 Big Ten) finally plays No. 13 William & Mary (14-1) to begin a three-day, three-state road trip with several streaks on the line.
Sophomore Georgia Rose is in the midst of a 10-match singles winning streak where she has skyrocketed to No. 11 in the national rankings. She’s part of the 13th-ranked doubles team, along with senior Alexis Prousis.
William & Mary will provide a challenge for NU’s top doubles team with its top-ranked team of Megan Moulton-Levy and Katarina Zoricic.
“They have a great doubles team as well as some highly ranked singles players,” Rose said. “Obviously this is a big match for us.”
After the detour to Williamsburg, Va., the squad will finish the trip with Big Ten opponents Ohio State (14-6, 3-2) on Saturday and Indiana (15-3, 5-0) on Sunday, trying to extend its 49-match conference win streak.
“We’ve been playing very well and dominating the Big Ten matches,” Rose said. “We’re hoping to continue with that and have three good matches this weekend.”
The final streak the Cats are trying to keep alive is the perfect record of the No. 2 doubles team of Lauren Lui and Keri Robison, who have meshed despite only playing five matches together this season.
“We get along very well,” Lui said. “It was hard when we first started playing because my old partner was more of a baseliner and she is a volleyer, but lately we have really clicked.”
– Brian Regan