Resiliency was in short order as Northwestern dropped every set en route to a pair of losses to Penn State and Ohio State in its conference opener this weekend.
“It was a matter of execution,” coach Keylor Chan said. “We scouted and we knew what they were going to do, and that was in our control, but we did not come out and execute.”
During Friday night’s game the Cats committed 10 service errors and capitalized on just one ace.
“You have to serve very tough against Penn State, but obviously we had trouble with that,” Chan said. “We knew it was risky, but we had to play that way.”
During Chan’s 10-season tenure at the helm, he has notched one win against the Nittany Lions. In 2002 NU beat then-No. 17 Penn State 3-1 at Welsh-Ryan Arena. Since 2002 the Cats have not won a match against the Nittany Lions, and have won only one set.
“Penn State does things that other teams can only dream of,” Chan said. “They’re unique unto themselves and we will never run into another team like them.”
Coming off a six-game winning streak, the Cats showed fleeting promise in their first set against the Nittany Lions, building a 14-10 lead. But a 7-1 run by Penn State reasserted the Nittany Lions’ offensive prowess and established the tone for the rest of the match.
“We came out really fired up,” sophomore setter Elyse Glab said. “Coming out against any other team like that, we might have
gotten a win.”
But NU didn’t. Glab offered 26 assists on the night, but the Nittany Lions, fueled by junior outside hitter Megan Hodge’s 16 kills, secured a three-set sweep of the Cats. At practice last week the team was anxious to test their progress against a formidable opponent. But the Cats found the Penn State game a daunting match by which to measure their Big Ten standing.
“You can’t judge your team against Penn State,” said junior middle blocker Naomi Johnson, who led the team with three assisted blocks. “For us it was just a really great learning experience, and I think we played well.”
The team’s consistency wavered again on Saturday night as the Cats lost to Ohio State in a more tightly contested match. The Buckeyes got off to a strong start, jumping out to a 25-13 lead over the Cats. But NU rallied back in the final two sets, spurred by Moffett’s match-high 15 kills. NU even captured a 16-9 lead in the second set, but lost the momentum and dropped the last sets 25-27 and 21-25.
“We really needed to come together more on defense,” Johnson said. “We need to work on coming out strong. … One or two small errors can really lose a tight game for you.”
In Saturday’s game against the Buckeyes the Cats mounted a considerably less aggressive service game than they did against the Nittany Lions. NU committed only one serving error, but still posted 19 attack errors.
Chan, who remains one win away from his 150th victory at NU, said the losses will be instructional for the team.
“This weekend’s matches have no bearing on the rest of our season,” Chan said. “We can still be very competitive in the Big Ten if we can get back into the gym and practice hard.”
The Cats’ competitiveness in the Big Ten will ride heavily on the team’s cohesion. Seniors Kate Nobilio and Ariel Baxterback both played a significant role this weekend. Nobilio, a libero, notched 14 digs against Ohio State while Baxterback, an outside hitter, posted seven kills against Penn State.
“Everyone has their own energy to offer,” Johnson said. “Sabel (Moffett) is a great emotional leader, Elyse (Glab) is a great floor captain, Kate (Nobilio) does a really good job of sort of being steady-eddy back there and Ariel (Baxterback) is a really calming presence on the court.”
Even though NU could not register its first Big Ten win this weekend, it will have a chance at redemption later in the season. NU will face Ohio State and then Penn State in the same weekend in mid-November.
“We’ve just got to realize that we play every team twice,” Moffett said. “When we get back to their court we’ve just got to do the same thing that they did to us today.”
