The NSU volleyball team trailed 15-9 in the second set, but rallied to win the set and the match over St. Cloud (Minn.) State 25-18, 25-18, 25-16 on Friday. The Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference collegiate volleyball match was played in Wachs Arena. The Wolves have won eight of their last nine matches.
After winning the first set, Northern trailed by six points midway through the second set. The Huskies missed a serve to push the Wolves closer at 15-10. With senior Ella Campbell behind the service line, NSU rattled off the next 11 points for a total of 12 in a row.
"We thought that we had to keep our composure and think that we're going to win it," said senior Kaleinani Kabalis. "We can't think negative. You have to think positive. We had to keep our consistency with our serves. That's what made it go tonight (Friday) was our serves."
Macey Finizio had a total of three kills in the run. When the dust cleared, Northern led 21-15 and cruised to a 25-18 win in the second set, which ended with two kills by Kabalis.
" I really get hyped. I'm really confident on the court and try to feed that off to my teammates so they get confident, too. We came out of the locker room and we just wanted to do what we do in practice every day and that's kill the ball and kill it hard," said Kabalis.
One of Northern's goals for the match was to serve well enough to make it difficult for the Huskies to run their offense.
"One of the keys we talked about was 'Can we win that serve-serve receive battle?' Ella got us going big time with that run of serves," said NSU head coach Brent Aldridge. "I thought our kids stayed composed and we're going to need that as we go down the stretch. We have been making plays, making adjustments in the back row and getting touches."
After the long break between sets two and three, the Wolves trailed 3-0 and 8-4 in the early going of set number three.
"We started real slow. We talked about it during the break. You never want to come out and get down on your home court. It's easy to do. We lost a little focus. Our kids can bounce back against teams," said Aldridge.
Kabalis finished with 13 kills and Kelsey Chambers added 10. Kabalis had just one error in 21 hitting attempts for a kill percent of .571. A kill percentage is like a baseball batting average where .300 is really good. Drew Smith handed out 41 set assists and Campbell had two ace serves to go along with 13 digs. Northern finished with 19 more kills in the match than St. Cloud.
"We had a great week of practice. We're making this change where everything matters. We're not satisfied with 14 wins. We want 15 and we want 16. We want to go to the tournament. The legacy this group can hang on the wall is not necessarily a championship banner but they were part of a turn around in a program," said Aldridge.
The Wolves' schedule, which is sprinkled with nationally ranked teams, has Minnesota-Duluth today at 3 p.m. at Wachs Arena in another NSIC contest.
"Duluth's ranked number five for a reason," said Aldridge. "They are really big and physical. I'm excited as always to play teams like that."
Serving: St. Cloud 2 aces (Allison Butler 2 aces); Northern 6 aces (Kaleinani Kabalis 2 aces, Ella Campbell 2 aces).
Hitting: St. Cloud 70-85 26 kills (Dani Donmeier 18-22 6 kills, Erin Ohlemann 8-8 5 kills); Northern 84-102 45 kills (Kabalis 20-21 13 kills, Kelsey Chambers 20-25 10 kills, Chelsea Chavez 13-16 8 kills, Macey Finizio 18-23 8 kills, Jussy Tuscherer 10-10 4 kills, Cari McGarvie 3-7 2 kills).
Setting: St. Cloud 26 assists (Ohlemann 18 assists); Northern 44 assists (Drew Smith 41 assists).
Digs: St. Cloud 34 (Jordan Hansen 12, Brianne Stamer 6); Northern (Campbell 13, Kabalis 10, Finizio 6, Smith 5).
Blocks: St. Cloud 1 solo 12 assists (Ellie Dietzen 1 solo 4 assists); Northern 1 solo 6 assists (Kabalis 1 solo, Chavez 3 assists).
Records: St. Cloud State 6-17, 2-13 NSIC; Northern State 14-9, 9-6 NSIC.