Texas A&M
9-0
Northern Illinois
8-3
Volleyball Wins Ladyjack Invitational
Sep 10, 2011 | Volleyball
It was a key contest for the two evenly matched teams who are receiving votes in the AVCA Coaches Top 25 Poll, with NIU entering the match listed 37th and riding a six-match winning streak and the undefeated Aggies coming in at No. 38.
"It was a really tough match to persevere the entire time at a really high level, because both teams were really going at each other pretty hard," A&M coach Laurie Corbelli said. "Their outside hitters were really hot, and we could have gotten really frustrated trying to stop them because we were not stopping them. I was impressed with the way our defense took their hits and came back and executed the things that we needed to do against their defense. I thought their defense was some of the best we've seen all season so far."
There were 11 ties and nine lead changes during the first half of the opening set before setter Allie Sawatzky and outside hitter Tori Mellinger posted back-to-back kills to give the Aggies a 15-14 lead. UNI would tie the score for the final time at 15-15 but was unable to regain the lead as A&M used a 7-0 run to pull away. The Aggies, who outhit the Huskies, .393 to .212 in the frame, would later lead, 23-28 when Alisia Kastmo got a cross-court kill to put A&M serving for the set. UNI staved off one set point with a kill before tournament MVP Kelsey Black put down one of her team-high 15 kills to clinch the set for the Aggies.
UNI had the hot hand in the second set, jumping out to a 4-0 lead and continuing to widen its margin throughout the stanza. The Huskies hit .452 -- the highest single-set hitting percentage by an A&M opponent this season - while holding the Aggies to a .033 hitting percentage, their second lowest single-set efficiency of the season, and used a 6-0 run to close out the set and even the match at a set apiece.
The Huskies carried the momentum into the third set and jumped out to a 9-4 lead. But then the Aggies began to rally, going on a 9-2 run to take a 14-11 lead. UNI managed to tie the score at 15- and 16-all before Kastmo tipped in a kill and Lindsey Miller followed with a kill. Black then swatted a kill off the UNI block, and Miller got a solo block to build a 20-16 cushion for the Aggies.
The Huskies, who were outhit, .370 to .062, could get no closer than three points before Black tallied her fourth kill of the set for the game winner, giving the Aggies a 2-1 lead in the match.
An attack error to lead off the fourth set would mark the only time the Aggies would trail for the remainder of the match. Black took over, posting eight kills in the frame to lead A&M to the victory. The senior from Amarillo used a series of three straight kills to build a 14-10 lead for the Aggies. A&M later used two three-point rallies to go up, 22-13. The teams traded points until Black got a kill to put the Aggies serving for the match. Miller, who was named to the all-tournament team, followed with her ninth kill of the contest for the winning point.
A&M outhit the Huskies .415 to .184 in the final set and .310 to .224 for the match.
"I thought the serving and passing game, we won that," Corbelli said when asked about the major difference in the match. "We were able to get in system more often. We kept the pressure on them with our serves and we changed up our serving a lot, and that took them out of their rhythm a little bit. And I think our team just adjusted better to the flow of the game. We needed to make some adjustments, going from the players attacking deep into their court to making more off-speed changes in our attack. The team did it right away and it was working and threw off our opponent."
Corbelli praised the play of Sawatzky, who joined Black and Miller on the all-tournament team after making some key adjustments and setting a balanced attack from antenna to antenna.
"Overall I thought that our setter really made some nice changes early in the match," Corbelli said about the 6-2 lefty who finished with 40 assists and added five kills of her own. "The sets were a little bit deep from the net, and (UNI) was able to stand deep in their court. They were digging everything, so we started making some changes, and it allowed our hitters to do some different things at the net against their block."
Kastmo and Mellinger joined Black in double-figure kills with 12 and 10, respectively. Mellinger, who rested and missed the first match of her career in A&M's 3-1 win against Stephen F. Austin on Friday, also reached double digits in digs, tying Aggie libero Megan Pendergast with a match-high 15 digs. Miller finished with nine kills and led all players with three blocks.
"We just continue to use different hitters all the time," Corbelli said. "We are trying to evenly distribute our sets as much as possible. It gets everyone into the game, and it makes us really hard to defend."
Lauren Wicinski had a match-high 22 kills for the Huskies, who drop to 8-3. Allison McGlaughlin added 13 kills and a team-high 13 digs.
A&M, which is within one victory of tying the 2007 team for the all-time best start in the history of the program, concludes its non-conference road schedule next weekend at the Michigan/adidas Invitational in Ann Arbor, Mich. The Aggies face Xavier and Toledo Friday at 10 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. (CT), respectively, and close out the tournament against host Michigan Saturday at 6:30 p.m.
"Those are some tough teams in Xavier, Toledo and Michigan," Corbelli said. "I think we'll see similar styles to what we saw today. A lot of Midwestern teams have a little bit different style, and I anticipate a lot of the same style of athlete and style of play that we saw today. I also know that they are going to be some really tough teams coming at us."
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