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Printer-Friendly ModeVolleyball drops match to NU, looks to final weekend
October 31, 2005 —
The SVSU volleyball team dropped their third consecutive 3-0 decision Friday night at Northwood.
Despite the loss, head coach Will Stanton does see improvement and knows what his team needs to do to start getting victories.
"Our biggest hurdle this season has been our own confidence and execution under pressure," he said.
NU dominated each of the three games, winning 30-22, 30-19, and 30-13. In all three of the games the Cards never held a lead; the closest they came was in the first game, when they tied the Timberwloves at 1-1.
As a team, they hit .321 in the first game, but ended the match with a .135 attack percentage. In the second and third games, the team only had a combined 20 kills.
Sophomore Danielle Dryer led the Cardinals with 11 kills and hit .474 for the match. Junior Amanda Jablonski added seven kills and a team high of three aces for the Lady Cards.
Stanton said he is proud of the way Jablonski has improved lately and knows that her hard work has been a testament to her most recent success.
Sophomore Amy Howard had six kills in 10 attacks with zero errors and added 25 assists to her team high of 991. Howard has been a consistent player for SVSU all season long, something her coach attributes from her knowledge of the game.
"Amy is the sort of player that enjoys the mental side of the game, and gets in to the strategies and X's and O's, and that is what we are trying to establish within the program," Stanton said. "So it really fits into her skill set."
Howard is looked to as a team leader, and Stanton said he believes she is setting her example by her play. She has also had to step up since fellow setter Jessica Conley was lost to injury very early in the season during preseason play.
"Amy realized that the team was all hers and that our success relies in her success, and she has taken to that challenge pretty well," Stanton said.
The Timberwolves were led by Gorana Maricic's 21 kills and .594 attack percentage. In the first game, they had a hitting percentage of .633 and in game three that total went up to .684. They also had a total of 52 team kills, opposed to the Cardinals, who had only 33.
Northwood now has a record of 17-9 overall and 11-4 in the GLIAC. The Timberwolves held on to second place in the standings, holding onto a one-game lead over Ferris State. SVSU, on the other hand, remains in the bottom of the standings, with their record of 7-21 overall and 1-14 in the GLIAC.
Stanton does remain optimistic and sees maturity in his players as the season has progressed.
"The team has been working hard to play beyond their experience level and has grown tremendously this season," he said. "We hope to see some more of that character through the rest of the season, so they can get the rewards for all of their hard work."
The Cardinals end the season with three straight home games this weekend against the three GLIAC schools from the Upper Peninsula: Lake Superior State on Friday, Michigan Tech on Saturday, and Northern Michigan on Sunday.