In their final regular season weekend, Bulldog volleyball ended the campaign with a loss to the Michigan Tech Huskies before getting a win over the Northern Michigan Wildcats, creating momentum to carry over into the postseason.
The Bulldogs now sit at 22-7 (15-3 in conference play) following the 3-2 loss to Michigan Tech (14-15 overall, 10-8 in conference) and the 3-0 sweep over Northern Michigan (12-17 overall, 9-9 in conference).
To start the weekend, the Bulldogs suffered a devastating loss to Michigan Tech. Ferris seemed to be on their way to winning versus the Huskies as they won both first-half sets (25-15) and (25-23). After the break, the Huskies rallied to defeat the Bulldogs in five sets.
Head coach Tia Brandel-Wilhem credited the Huskies while acknowledging the difficulty of the loss.
“It sure was a tough loss, I thought Michigan Tech played really well,” Brandel-Wilhelm said. “They’re a good team, very much improved over the last six weeks for sure. I thought that they made some changes, and we didn’t adapt to those changes.”
After the tough loss, the Bulldogs had to turnaround and face the Wildcats, hoping to end the regular season on a good note and gain some momentum heading into the postseason.
The team did just that against Northern Michigan, as they dominated the Wildcats in the first set (25-12) and in the second set (25-16). After the break, the Bulldogs did not want a repeat of the night before and dominated the third set (25-11) to finish the game.
Brandel-Wilhelm thought the team was more focused, worked hard to execute and thought her team responded well coming off the disappointing loss the night before.
“I thought we were really focused, we did a nice job of working hard to execute the game plan,” Brandel-Wilhelm said. “It’s tough to come off a disappointment like last night and I thought that we did we made a couple little changes, but the biggest thing was just in the way the players played and the way they approached the game.”
The Bulldogs had some strong performances in this weekend’s series to finish out the regular season.
Junior middle-hitter Olivia Henneman-Dallape had a combined 39 kills over the two games as she surpassed 1,000 career kills, Junior outside hitter Claire Nowicki had a combined 20 kills, Junior setter Kaylee Maat combined for 74 assists and Junior libero Leah Bylut combined for 24 digs.
Now the Bulldogs have to get prepared for the postseason now that the regular season has come to an end, they look to have a lot of success in the postseason.
Senior libero Kenzy Corstange talks about the preparation the team has to do and what it’s going to be like playing in the GLIAC tournament.
“It’s a quick turnaround [since] we play on Wednesday, so we have a few days to get prepared,” Corstange said. “We’re going to have to watch a lot of film, and this will be the third time that we play whatever team we’re playing so just mentally and physically preparing recovering our bodies. Everyone will be fighting both sides of the court no one’s going to give up because you lose you go home.”
The Bulldogs earned the second seed in the GLIAC tournament and will face the seventh seeded Purdue Northwest Pride on Wednesday, Nov. 15 with game time set for 5 p.m.