Volleyball Tripped Up by Northeastern in Five-Set Thriller

Saturday, October 15

Harrisonburg, Va.

James Madison University

15-6, 5-2CAA

Northeastern

15-4, 5-2CAA

Northeastern

James Madison

Blockers - Danielle Erb and Kelly Maguire - William & Mary

Volleyball Tripped Up by Northeastern in Five-Set Thriller

10/15/2011 7:00:00 PM | Volleyball

Box Score

HARRISONBURG, Va., Oct. 15, 2011 – Junior outside hitters Natalie Abel (Washington, Pa./Trinity) and Danielle Erb (Tampa, Fla./Plant) each picked up double-doubles against Northeastern, but it was not enough as the Huskies hit .214 as a team to earn a 3-2 win at Sinclair Gymnasium/Godwin Hall on Saturday night.

Northeastern won by set scores of 25-17, 23-25, 23-25, 25-16, 15-8 to pick up its fifth straight win and improve to 15-4 overall and 5-2 in Colonial Athletic Association play. The Dukes dropped to 15-6 and 5-2 in league play.

“Tonight was a really high-level match,” head volleyball coach Lauren Steinbrecher said. “Tonight is why we are all in collegiate athletics, because it was a lot of fun to watch two teams rally and play hard volleyball. I thought Northeastern outplayed us in sets four and five. Hats off to them, I thought they played great tonight.”

Erb posted a .214 attack percentage as she collected a team-high 15 kills to go with 14 digs and three blocks. Abel added a .216 attack percentage, finishing with 14 kills and 11 digs. Junior setter Megan Wiechmann (Sunland, Calif./Village Christian) also had a double-double with 29 assists and 13 digs while sophomore libero Katie Daorai (Tampa, Fla./Plant) had a team-high 23 digs and four assists. Sophomore middle blocker Kelly Maguire (Long Valley, N.J./West Morris Central) led the team with seven blocks and six kills and senior outside hitter Holly Wall (Kaukauna, Wisc./Kaukauna) did a little of everything with 11 digs, six kills, six blocks, two service aces and an assist.

Reigning CAA Rookie of the Year Janelle Tucker led four Huskies in double figure kills with 17, adding 14 digs and six blocks. Jillian Briner collected a triple-double with 15 kills, 23 assists, 11 digs, two service aces and a block while Kelly Bacon finished with 12 kills and 20 digs. Natalia Skiba led all players with 35 digs and Nichole Kurz had a match-high eight blocks.

Northeastern had 67 kills to Madison's 50 and won the digs battle 90-79. Each team had 11 blocks while the Huskies collected eight service aces to JMU's two.

After the team's traded th