Milwaukee Athletics

MILWAUKEE – The Northern Kentucky offense was too much to overcome as the visiting Norse upended the Milwaukee volleyball team in four sets on Friday evening at the Klotsche Center.
 
NKU had 60 kills on the night as four players had at least 10, including a match-high 15 from Ivey Stocks. The Norse connected on just a .199 hitting percentage overall but finished the match strong with a .310 hitting percentage over the final two sets.
 
The two sides split the first two sets, with Northern Kentucky taking the opener 25-23 before the Panthers put together one of their best efforts of the season with a 25-12 win in the second set. The Norse won the final two sets by 25-15 and 25-18 margins.
 
Natalie Schmitz led Milwaukee with 13 kills and a .387 hitting percentage, while Bella Lipski added nine kills and had an impressive showing up front with seven blocks. Overall, the Panthers had 11 blocks, tying their season high. Josie Johnson led Milwaukee with 19 assists, while Josie Noble and Milica Tomic shared the team lead with two service aces.
 
"We played every facet of the game well," said head coach Susie Johnson. "We need to do a better job of terminating the ball more. We were competitive tonight, but we need to improve more at finishing."
 
The first set was competitive throughout as the two sides exchanged the lead on eight occasions, while the score was tied on 11 separate occasions. With the score tied at 20, Northern Kentucky won the next four points before the Panthers responded with three of their own. Ultimately, a kill by NKU gave the Norse the opening set, 25-23.
 
Milwaukee responded in a big way in the second set en route to a 25-12 win. The Panthers hit .480 as a team with 12 kills on 25 attempts and did not commit an attacking error. Schmitz had four kills in the set with Emily Hansen adding three. Kara Erdmann had light work with just four digs against the NKU offense, which hit -.026 with 11 kills against 12 errors.
 
Northern Kentucky found its footing again in the third set and won 25-15 with a match-high 20 kills including six from Stocks, and five from Ava Hoying. While the fourth set was closer than the previous two, it was ultimately costly errors by Milwaukee and 15 kills by the Norse that sealed the win, 25-18.
 
Tomic added 14 assists to go along with her pair of aces, while she also finished the match with eight digs. Erdmann ended the night with 23 digs. Noble, Schmitz, and Ella Schuetz each had three blocks on the defensive end.
 
Milwaukee and Northern Kentucky will meet again on Saturday afternoon at 1:00 p.m. at the Klotsche Center.