HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. – Northern Kentucky volleyball is home for matches on Friday and Saturday, with a 6 p.m. ET first serve against Oakland on Friday, Oct. 27, before the Norse take on Youngstown State on Saturday, Oct. 28 at 4 p.m. Both matches will be broadcast on ESPN3 with live streaming available on computers, tablets, smart phones and streaming devices through WatchESPN and the ESPN App. Mike Schmaltz will have the call for Friday's contest, while Rich Hidy will take over for Saturday.
 
WEEKEND PROMOS: Friday's match will be "90's Night," which will feature classic tunes from the 1990s along with an NKU Swag Bag for the best dressed student. On Saturday, fans are encouraged to celebrate Halloween with the Norse. Those wearing a costume will receive free admission to the match.
 
LAST TIME OUT: NKU split its matches last weekend, winning in four over Wright State on the road before dropping a four-set home match to League-leading IUPUI. Against the Raiders, Haley Libs led NKU with 14 kills and 11 digs, while Laura Crawford added 12 and Kaelin Gentile chipped in 10. All three hit above .250 for the match, including a career-best .500 for Gentile. The setback to IUPUI was highlighted by NKU's defensive effort which saw the Norse rack up 111 digs, led by Shelby Olsen with a career-best 25 scoops. Crawford had the first 20/20 match of her career with 20 kills and 24 digs, and McKenzie Eskridge added a season-best 24 digs, just one off her career mark. Libs was also a key contributor with 15 kills and 19 digs.
 
LOOK OUT FOR LIBS: Junior outside hitter Haley Libs is quickly closing in on her 1,000th career kill. After posting 252 kills this season, Libs is just four kills away from becoming the 19th player in NKU history to hit the milestone.
 
WINNING WAYS: NKU hit a major milestone as a program on Oct. 2, as the Norse posted their 1,000th win in the 42-year team history with a 3-1 win over Youngstown State. The Penguins claimed the opening set, but NKU rattled off the next three sets to remain undefeated in the series history with YSU. Haley Libs led the team with 21 kills and 15 digs, connecting at a .395 clip, while freshman Kaelin Gentile had a career night with 11 kills at a .346 clip. Drew Hendricks had a strong showing with a career-best 13 kills from the left pin.
 
DOUBLE THE DOUBLE-DOUBLE TROUBLE: Both Haley Libs and Laura Crawford are averaging double-doubles on the season, with 13.26 kills/14.16 digs and 11.63 kills/13.37 digs per match, respectively. The duo recorded back-to-back double-doubles in the first two matches of the season against Robert Morris and Duquesne, and again versus Seattle and Sacramento State and later against Wright State and IUPUI. Libs is currently riding a streak of six-straight double-doubles, while Crawford has rebooted her streak at two.
  
The Robert Morris match marked a feat that had not been accomplished in nearly a decade. Two players with a double-double in a sweep is a feat in and of itself, but the rarity is even more so when the two players are both attackers. The last time a pair of Norse attackers registered double-doubles in a sweep was on Oct. 21, 2007 against Mount St. Joseph, when current head coach Liz Hart (née Holmes) had 16 kills and 10 digs in the three-set victory while Tristen Dye added 15 kills and 14 digs. The last time two attackers had double-doubles in a victory of any kind was on Nov. 14, 2015 against Cleveland State, courtesy of Libs (17 kills, 13 digs) and Jayden Julian (10 kills, 17 digs).
 
AND SETTER MAKES THREE: Shelby Olsen has also entered the fold as a double-double machine, averaging 41.05 assists and 12.53 digs per match. Olsen recorded the first double-double of her career against Seattle and went off for three-straight double-doubles throughout the entirety of the NKU Invitational, culminating in career bests of 53 assists and 17 digs (which was bested by 20 digs against Florida A&M on Sept. 16) against Bowling Green.
 
BACK LINE OF DEFENSE: Northern Kentucky's defense has become a mainstay of its success, and the Norse are keeping up with the trend of being one of the top defensive teams in the Horizon League. NKU is not only leading the Horizon League in digs per set (18.11) and second in opponent hitting percentage (.198), but the team ranks 10th nationally in the former.
 
SCOUTING OAKLAND: The Golden Grizzlies are still in the hunt for the coveted top seed in the Horizon League Tournament, sitting at 7-3 this season in a two-way tie for second. After a rocky start to the season with losses to Green Bay and Milwaukee, Oakland rolled through the rest of the League in the first half of the schedule with just two sets dropped in the next six matches, including a sweep of top-ranked IUPUI. A five-set upset from Milwaukee halted Oakland's streak, but the Golden Grizzlies righted the ship with a five-set win over Green Bay the next day.
  
Oakland is led by Darien Bandel, who has been leading the League with 4.45 kills per set and ranks 27th in the nation with 4.23 kps across all matches. Bandel was the primary source of NKU's woes in the last matchup, as the outside hitter blasted 27 kills at a .407 clip, recording 17 more kills than the next leading attacker on the team. The Golden Grizzlies also have a powerful defensive weapon in middle blocker Krysteena Davis, who ranks seventh nationally with 1.54 blocks per set, and an even higher 1.73 bps in League play. Oakland is the top blocking team in the Horizon League at 3.39 blocks per set (2.86 overall, good for 13th in the nation), with Sammy Condon and Jordan Lentz also sitting in the top-10 of the League.
  
NKU has struggled against the Golden Grizzlies historically, as Oakland holds a 9-1 advantage in the all-time series over the Norse, with the lone win coming last season in a sweep at home on Oct. 1. That win, which saw the Norse dismantle the Golden Grizzlies 25-16, 25-14, 25-18, sparked a seven-match sweep streak that marked the first time since 2008 that NKU had downed seven-consecutive opponents in straight sets and the first time in program history that seven-straight sweeps were recorded against conference opponents.
 
SCOUTING YOUNGSTOWN STATE: The Penguins enter the weekend with a 0-10 mark in League play, and have won just three sets overall since Sept. 22.
  
Youngstown State sits near the bottom of the League in nearly every statistical ranking except for one, with the Penguins pacing the Horizon League with 1.35 aces per set.  YSU's most potent weapon from behind the line is senior outside hitter Sam Brown, who averages .37 aces a game, while Sarah Varcolla, Margaux Thompson and Heather Splinter have also proven to be formidable servers. Splinter runs one half of Youngstown's 6-2 offense, averaging 4.77 assists per set while Libbie Darling averages 5.21. The pair balances the offense well, with four Penguins averaging  more than two kills per set, paced by Varcolla in the middle with 2.54 kps to go with 1.12 blocks per set.
  
NKU has only played Youngstown State since joining the Horizon League and has taken all five matchups against the Penguins. When the two teams met earlier in the season on Sept. 29, YSU took the first set, 25-22, before the Norse finished off the match in the next three, 25-16, 25-23, 25-22. Haley Libs (21 kills, 15 digs) and Shelby Olsen (50 assists, 15 digs) both recorded double-doubles in the victory.