Oct. 28, 2007

MIDLAND - The Lake Superior State volleyball team relied on superior blocking and strong back-row defense to battle back from a 2-1 deficit and beat Northwood in five games Sunday.

The Lakers (8-20 overall, 3-13 Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference) snapped a four-match losing skid with the 30-24, 27-30, 20-30, 30-27, 15-12 road victory. They close out the season with another road trip to Michigan Tech (Friday) and Northern Michigan (Saturday).

After tying the match, 2-2, LSSU stormed to an 8-3 lead in Game 5. Northwood (18-10 overall, 6-10 GLIAC) regrouped after calling its second timout and scored four straight points. The Timberwolves cut the lead to 8-7 and forced Lake State to call its first timeout.

LSSU's Brishia Stroven won the next point with a kill. The Lakers took an 11-7 lead on a Northwood attack error and another Stroven kill. Trisha Dutton's kill gave LSSU a 12-8 lead, but the Timberwolves closed the gap again -- this time to 13-12. They forced the Lakers to call their last timeout.

Ali Jones hammered back-to-back kills to win back the serve for LSSU and close out the match.

Jones finished with 10 kills, while Stroven had eight. Erin McLain, Sara Hess, Samantha Gibbs and Jamie Groos balanced out the attack with six kills each.

LSSU totaled 17 team blocks to Northwood's six. Groos led at the net with three block solos and two assists, and Jones had two solos and four assists. Gibbs added two solos and three assists.

The Lakers also totaled a season-high 96 team digs. Groos and Stroven led with 18 each, followed by Jessica Ewer with 16 and McLain with 15. McLain totaled 26 assists, and Ashley Purvis had 11.