LEXINGTON, Ky. - Northern Kentucky volleyball's historic season ended on Friday evening after falling to No. 22 Michigan at Memorial Coliseum in the first round of the 2019 NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball Championship, 25-22, 25-15, 25-22. The Norse end their season at 19-13 after making the first Division I NCAA Championship in program history.
First Set Summary
- NKU began the opening frame with a 9-6 advantage thanks to five attack errors by the Wolverines.
- Although the Wolverines' play cleaned up from there, the set was knotted up and within one to two points. NKU had a 16-15 lead thanks to kills by Anna Brinkman and Abby Kanakry before Michigan took the lead for the final time.
- With the set tied at 21 apiece, Michigan won four of the last five points to take the set, 25-22.
Second Set Summary
- The Norse broke out to a 9-7 lead after going on a 5-1 run. Kaelin Gentile had a crucial kill to even it up at seven and NKU capitalized on a bad set and an attack error to take the lead.
- Michigan used a 4-0 run to move back out front at 11-9. The Wolverines had all of the momentum at that point and catapulted to a 25-15 set win.
- Through two sets, Michigan was hitting at .246 to NKU's .087. The Norse, however, were doing a great job at generating timely blocks, leading that margin, 7-3, as Bailey Western lead the way for NKU with four.
Third Set Summary
- Both Briggs and Kanakry tacked on a pair of kills to open up the third set and helped the Norse to an early 6-3 lead.
- Michigan recovered and dug a 12-9 hole for NKU. The Norse then established momentum when Briggs ended the Wolverine run with a kill and Miranda Wucherer set up Western and Brinkmann to win three-consecutive points.
- NKU rode a 7-1 run to a 16-13 lead, with Michigan's only point in that span being a Norse service error.
- The Norse held a 22-21 advantage, but the Wolverines used a four-point run to win the frame and advance to the second round of the tournament.
- Northern Kentucky's attacking efficiency vastly improved in the final set as the Norse had 16 kills on 38 swings, connecting at a .289 clip.
Norse Notes
- Kanakry led the Norse with 10 kills, hitting .316 in the final match of her rookie campaign. She also added three blocks.
- Brinkmann was productive on both the offensive and defensive end with seven kills and seven digs.
- Briggs added six kills and a trio of blocks.
- Laura Crawford posted five kills and had an outstanding defensive match with 16 digs. Crawford concludes her NKU career with 993 kills, 932 digs and 228 blocks.
- Shelby Olsen dished out 18 assists and scooped up eight digs in the final match of her collegiate career. She finishes her time at NKU as just the third Norse setter to amass over 2,000 assists and 1,000 digs. She tallied 2,856 assists to rank ninth all-time at NKU to go with 1,115 career digs.
- Ashton Terrill added 13 digs and a pair of aces. She goes into her junior season at fourth on NKU's all-time digs list with 1,612 and is on good pace to overtake Jenny Jeremiah's all-time record of 2,050 career digs.
- The Norse out-blocked the Big Ten opponent, 9-4, with Western and Gentile each adding four rejections. Western now has 261 career block assists, good for ninth on NKU's all-time list.
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