HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. –  Northern Kentucky volleyball has won 15 straight sets to claim its last five victories, and will begin the second half of the Horizon League schedule against Valparaiso and Wright State. The Norse will head to Valparaiso, Indiana, to square off with the Crusaders on Saturday, Oct. 22 at 5 p.m. ET. The team will then head back to Regents Hall to host Wright State on Sunday, Oct. 23 at 4 p.m. Sunday's match will be NKU's Youth Jersey Night, which provides free admission to all youth that attend the match in their team's jersey.
 
Both matches will be broadcast on ESPN3, which can be viewed on WatchESPN or the ESPN App. For the Saturday match in Valparaiso, Parker Gatewood will provide play-by-play for the evening broadcast. Mike Schmaltz will be on call for Sunday's match in Highland Heights.
 
LAST TIME OUT: The Norse extended their winning streak to five with a three-set win over UIC on Oct. 15, 25-22, 25-18, 25-19. Sophomore outside hitter and redshirt-senior setter Taylor Snyder both recorded double-doubles, with Libs putting down a match-high 16 kills to go with 10 digs while Snyder dished out 43 assists and scooped up 13 digs. A Norse duo has not posted double-doubles in a sweep since Oct. 21, 2007, in a sweep of Mount St. Joseph. Liz Holmes, now the head coach of the NKU program, had 16 kills and 10 digs while Tristen Dye had 15 kills and 14 digs.
 
SNYDER SENSATIONAL IN SWEEPS: The past three sweeps have proven to be landmark matches for redshirt-senior setter Taylor Snyder. In the win over Wright State on Oct. 9, Snyder had a double-double with 34 assists and 10 digs, hitting the career mark of 4,000 assists. She is just the fourth Norse setter to ever hit 4,000 assists and is the first one to do so in the Division I era. She followed it up with 31 assists and 10 digs in the sweep of Youngstown State on Oct. 12 to record her 1,000th career dig. Snyder is now just the second setter in NKU history to have 4,000 assists and 1,000 digs in a career, and once again, the first to do so in the Division I era. Her back-to-back double-doubles were an impressive feat in themselves, as Snyder became the first Norse since 2008 to record consecutive double-doubles in sweeps of opponents. The last time it happened was on Sept. 8, 2008, when Tristen Dye had 12 kills and 14 digs against Kentucky Wesleyan before posting 12 kills and 13 digs against Wheeling Jesuit. Snyder followed it up with 43 assists and 13 digs in the sweep of UIC. With available single-match box scores dating back to just 2006, there has been no other Norse to post double-doubles in three straight sweeps.
 
RED HOT NORSE: Heading into Saturday, NKU has swept five straight League opponents in Oakland, Valparaiso, Wright State, Youngstown State and UIC. The last time that NKU had five straight sweeps was in 2011, when the Norse went on a run of five consecutive sweeps that included wins over Great Lakes Valley Conference foes Drury, Missouri S&T, William Jewel and Rockhurst, as well as Cedarville. The last time that NKU swept five straight conference foes was in 2005 with straight-set wins over St. Joseph's, Illinois-Springfield, Quincy, Missouri-St. Louis and Missouri S&T.
 
CREAM OF THE CROP: After being named Horizon League Offensive Player of the Week on Oct. 10 and 17, senior middle hitter Keely Creamer became the first Norse since Jenny Jeremiah in 1999 to earn player of the week honors in consecutive weeks. Creamer averaged 4.83 kills both weeks, hitting .481 against Valparaiso and Wright State before a clip of .545 against Youngstown State and UIC. Her .750 hitting percentage behind 19 kills vs. Valparaiso was not only an NKU D-I-era single-match record, but it is also the third-highest clip in the NCAA with at least 20 attempts this season. She also has the third-best percentage in the 15-19 attempts category after hitting .842 off 16 kills in the win over YSU.
 
SCOUTING VALPARAISO: The Crusaders have had an interesting run since they were taken down in straight sets on Oct. 7 in Highland Heights. Plagued by injuries, Valpo has doubled up libero Morganne Longoria's role on the team by also having her serve as the primary setter against Oakland and Milwaukee.  Valpo stunned Oakland with a sweep in Rochester, Michigan, but fell to the Panthers. Longoria continued to run the offense in a modified 6-2 system during the sweep of Chicago State, with Tarrah Lasky setting from her back row rotations. The lineup that the Crusaders will use on Saturday is yet to be determined, but their Friday match against Wright State will likely provide more insight into what the Norse will see.
  
On the season, Valpo holds a 10-14 overall record and has gone 2-6 in Horizon League play. Reigning Horizon League Defensive Player of the Week Longoria is the League's leader in digs per set at 4.96, as well as 5.15 digs per set in League-only matches, pacing the backrow defense that also sits at the top of the League with 16.99 digs per set. Taylor Grabowski continues to lead Valpo's hitting after switching from the middle to the right pin, averaging just over three kills per set in League action.
  
After securing a 25-12, 25-22, 25-18 win in Highland Heights on Oct. 7, NKU now holds a 3-1 advantage in the all-time series. When the two teams met previously this year, the Crusaders were held to just a .103 hitting percentage while the Norse set a Division-I single-match team record of .402, led by Keely Creamer's 19 kills at a .750 clip. Her percentage broke NKU's D-I-era single-match record, and her 19 kills set the new standard in three-set matches since transitioning to Division I.
 
SCOUTING WRIGHT STATE: While NKU is riding a sweep streak, the Raiders have been swept in their last three matches starting with their loss to the Norse on Oct. 9. Wright State's record has since dipped to 8-13 (3-5 HL), with its most recent losses to the League's top two teams, Cleveland State and Green Bay. Katie Klusman leads the team on the left pin with 3.47 kills per set on the season, good for third in the League, and 3.21 kills per set in League action. Like Valpo, Wright State is near the top of the League standings in digs per set (16.28) led by the strong leadership of Jessie Thornton as libero with 4.82 digs per set (4.50 in HL-only matches).
           
After a 25-18, 25-23, 26-24 win in Dayton, Ohio, NKU moved to 16-12 in the all-time series against the Raiders. During the match on Oct. 9, Haley Libs and Keely Creamer led the Norse with 11 and 10 kills, respectively, while libero Lauren Hurley had 23 digs. Also of note, Taylor Snyder recorded her 4,000th career assist after tallying 34 assists to go with 10 digs.