Northern State advances in five-set thriller over Minnesota State

It was anything but easy, but No. 5 Northern State volleyball got the job done.

The second-seeded Wolves lost sets one and four, but pounded out the other three, including a decisive win in the fifth to take their Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference tournament first-round match with Minnesota State Tuesday at Wachs Arena, 22-25, 25-18, 25-16, 24-26, 15-10. Northern State advances to the second round and will play Southwest Minnesota State Friday in Duluth, Minn.

With the victory, the Wolves set the school record for wins in a season with 26.

When they were winning, the Wolves were winning big, but when they weren’t, things looked dicey. Northern trailed but fought hard through an eventual Minnesota State first set, then simply cruised in the second and third. The Wolves were primed to put it away in the fourth, too, when things went south.

Minnesota State went on a 7-1 run starting from down 21-15 and ending up up 23-22. The Wolves were able to tie it twice thereafter, but the Mavericks closed out the comeback to even the match at two apiece and send it to the short decider.

“I just told them nothing mattered up to that point,” Wolves head coach Brent Aldridge said after the match. “When we kind of decided to stop playing and had a bunch of errors, I said did (Minnesota State) play better or did we make errors? I thought we erred, and they pressured us. But I said nothing really in this match matters at this point. All that matters is the next 15.”

It was back-and-forth for the first several points, as Northern’s 6-4 edge was the first time either team got up more than a point. But the Wolves took off from there, Jaiden Langlie serving out an eventual four-point run plus the initial side out to make it a 5-0 streak for the Wolves.

“When (Minnesota State) got (Morgan Olson) back to the front row, I was (concerned),” Aldridge said. “They needed one more rotation, we needed to get two or three more points, and we did.”

It never got closer than two after that point, as Northern stretched it out late thanks to back-to-back Ashley Rozell/Jenna Reiff blocks at points 13 and 14, igniting the Northern side of the net.

“It took a long time to get dialed in,” Aldridge said. “They didn’t set their outside, they set their right side and their middles. Finally.”

Northern put it away, appropriately, via a Hailey Busch kill, her team-high 16th of the match.

She was followed closely by Laura Snyder with 14 kills. Snyder was massive in the middle sets. Morgan Baufield hit .407 and smashed home a dozen kills of her own. Rozell set 54 assists. Five Wolves amassed double-digit digs: Langlie and Rozell with 15 apiece, Lexi Boesl and Alyssa Deobler with 13 apiece and Busch with 12. Northern combined for 17 blocks. Ten of them assisted on by Jenna Reiff.

“I’m proud of our kids. It gets us another step,” Aldridge said. “We go to (Minnesota Duluth), it sounds like, because they beat Upper Iowa.”

The semifinals and finals will be played in Duluth, as the Bulldogs are the highest remaining seed. The semis are set for Friday night, where Northern will take on Southwest Minnesota State at 5 p.m.

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Northern State 22-25-25-24-15 Minnesota State 25-18-16-26-10

NSIC tournament first round at Wachs Arena

Serving: MSU 5 aces (Alivia Garbe 1, Micayla Porter 1, Jane Sakowicz 1, Mara Quam 2); NSU 7 aces (Morgan Baufiled 2, Hailey Busch 3, Jaiden Langlie 2).

Hitting: MSU 157-187 63 kills (Garbe 40-45 14, Morgan Olson 30-39 18, Porter 1-1, Anissa Janzig 21-21 9, Ashton Lee 5-8 1, Sakowicz 0-0, Dana Schindler 28-31 12, Joie Veldman 16-22 4, Haley Shimon 16-18 5); NSU 155-178 62 kills (Baufield 26-27 12, Ashley Rozell 6-8 4, Jenna Reiff 15-16 7, Busch 48-55 16, Sally Gaul 21-26, 7, Laura Snyder 35-39 14, Regan Dennis 4-7 2).

Setting: MSU 63 assists (Garbe 1, Porter 30, Sakowicz 1, Schindler 15, Quam 4, Lauren Lowry 12); NSU 59 assists (Lexi Boesl 1, Rozell 54, Reiff 1, Snyder 3).

Digs: MSU 86 (Garbe 26, Olson 5, Porter 7, Janzig 2, Sakowicz 11, Schindler 7, Quam 22, Veldman 3, Lowry 3); NSU 82 (Boesl 13, Baufield 4, Rozell 15, Reiff 4, Alyssa Deobler 13, Busch 12, Gaul 4, Snyder 2, Langlie 15).

Blocks: MSU 3 solo 16 assist (Garber 1 ba, Olson 4 ba, Janzig 1 bs 6 ba, Lee 2 ba, Schindler 1 bs 2 ba, Shimon 1 bs 1 ba); NSU 1 solo 32 assist (Baufield 6 ba, Rozell 5 ba, Reiff 10 ba, Busch 7 ba, Snyder 1 bs 3 ba, Dennis 1 ba).