Northwestern volleyball just wrapped up another brutal 0-2 weekend, stretching their losing streak to six straight games. Every single one of those six losses? Big Ten conference matchups, and it’s getting harder and harder to watch our ‘Cats struggle like this.
Against #11 Penn State: So Close, Yet So Far
Friday kicked off the weekend in College Park, Pennsylvania, against #11 Penn State, and honestly, it was tough to swallow. The Wildcats got swept 0-3 (18-25, 17-25, 19-25). Yeah, zero sets won. Some players really showed up, with Campbell Paris leading the charge with eight kills, freshman Maya Stiwall adding seven, and Ellie Stiernagle dishing out 25 assists. But even those efforts weren’t enough. We actually started the first set with a 4-0 run thanks to an opening kill from Mara Štiglic. That was our only lead in the set though. Penn State was just hitting lights out, a crazy .469 on 18 total kills, with Kendall Northern getting five of her own.
The second set felt like a gut punch, too. Penn State jumped out to a 7-3 lead, but then Bella Bullington went on a FOUR-kill run, tying it up and giving us a massive wave of momentum. You could feel the shift, right? But it just didn’t stick. We fell behind 15-11 by the media timeout and never clawed back. Then, in the final set, Penn State came out hot again, getting an 18-9 lead. We made a valiant comeback, an eight-point run that put us just one behind them! You thought, “This is it, right?” Nope. Penn State closed it out with a 5-0 run to take the set and the sweep. Brutal.
Against Maryland: Historic Efforts Squandered in a Five-Set Thriller
Saturday brought another Big Ten foe in Maryland, and man, this match was electric. It went the full five sets, which is exactly what you want to see, even if it didn’t go our way. We lost 2-3 (19-25, 25-18, 18-25, 25-17, 17-19), but what an effort. Mara Štiglic had her third 20-kill match of the season, and Bella Bullington led the team with an incredible 22 kills. Think about this: it was the first time since 2017, almost ten years ago, that we had two hitters with 20-plus kills in a single match! On top of that, we had a season-high 11 aces and 13 blocks. You get these kinds of historic performances, and you just expect a win, right?
We were down 4-0 early in the first set, but then we answered with a six-point run to take the lead. The set went back and forth, but Maryland pulled away late, capitalizing on a few of our errors to take it 25-19. We bounced back strong in the second set, winning 25-18 after a 4-1 start. Štiglic and Paris were just dominating with their kills, putting us up 16-10. Even after a Maryland comeback, Štiglic got us to 24-16, and Bullington closed it out. Maryland took the third set, and the Wildcats took the fourth. The Terrapins…
This team is playing with fire, battling hard, putting up historic numbers, and still coming up short. That six-game losing streak is a tough pill to swallow, especially with every single loss being in conference play. You gotta wonder when things will click and those incredible individual performances will start translating into wins. We need to find a way to close out these tight matches. Let’s hope they can turn it around and get some Ws on the board soon, because the effort is clearly there.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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