MARQUETTE, Mich. -- Following a difficult five-set loss at Michigan Tech on Friday night, the Wayne State University volleyball team (13-12 overall, 6-8 GLIAC) bounced back to defeat Northern Michigan (11-14 overall, 7-7 GLIAC) in another five-set thriller on Saturday. Thanks to a sweep of the Wildcats in Detroit back on Oct. 10, the Warriors swept the two teams' season series.
"The U.P. is always a challenging road trip, and losing
Kayla Dulgar last night was tough," said head coach
Tim Koth. But today we came out and had a great TEAM effort to win at Northern Michigan. I'm very proud of our team!"
Wayne State 3, Northern Michigan 2
HOW IT HAPPENED (-20, 18-25, 12-25, -14, -12)
- Wayne State hit .164 for the match with 51 kills and 28 errors on 140 total attacks.
- Northern Michigan finished at .177 with 49 kills and 23 mishaps on 147 attempts.
- The Warriors' highest hitting percentage came in the fourth at .423 (12-1-26).
- The Wildcats were at their most efficient in the second at .391 (11-2-23).
- WSU won all six of the major head-to-head categories.
- Those six included points (70-62), kills (51-49), service aces (6-5), total blocks (13-8), assists (48-44), and digs (58-54).
- After playing in all 110 of the team's matches since joining the program before the 2023 season,
Kayla Dulgar missed the first match of her career.
- Individually, starting on offense, three Warriors reached 12 or more kills --
Lauren Essenpreis (13),
Katie Smith (12) and
Katerina Stout (12).
- Essenpreis also paced the Green and Gold in service aces with two (tied with
Giselle Burlingame) and total blocks with five.
- Staying on offense and making her first career start,
Abby Parrish dished out a personal-best 32 assists.
-
Abby Baushke also saw a bigger role because of the injury and capitalized with nine assists, the first nine of her career.
- Defensively, above the net, Essenpreis was joined by two others with multiple blocks -- Stout with four solo and
Kyleigh Weck with two unnassisted.
- In the dig department, Burlingame (14), Essenpreis (12) and
Aubree Garcia (11) were the frontrunners.
- For Essenpreis, that marked the sophomore's ninth career double-double and fifth of the season.
LEADING THE WARRIORS
UP NEXT
Wayne State will be at Purdue Northwest on Friday for a 7 p.m. eastern time first serve against the Lions on John Friend Court.
