The NMU women’s volleyball team was back on the hardwood last weekend and they continued to improve on their fundamentals. The ’Cats swept the UW-Green Bay tournament, winning all four matches and improving their exhibition record to 7-1. The Wildcats were able to rack up another win against a Division-I opponent by beating host UW-Green Bay. Head coach Dominic Yoder said it’s an accomplishment to get quality wins and see the training pay off.

“What an accomplishment,” Yoder said. “We played a pretty good Division-I team in Green Bay that we were able to win in three and then Duluth who’s top 10 in the nation and we were able to beat them. That was something that was really exciting for them; it really shows that the training is working and what their wanting to do as a team is on track to accomplish that.”

The game against the University of Minnesota-Duluth showed the resilience of the Wildcats squad as they dropped the first match 19-25, before coming back to win the second and third matches.

“They said when they came off that first set, they didn’t feel like they really competed to the best of their ability,” Yoder said. “So they came out in the second set and really competed and kind of stunned Duluth a little bit, which really carried over into the third.”

The Wildcats picked up the win in the second match with a 26-24 decision and dropped the Bulldogs 15-12 in the third and final match to pick up the win. Junior Emma Wolfe said it was good for the ’Cats to pull off the comeback, especially since this is a team they’ll be facing again.

“It’s huge,” Wolfe said. “It’s very important to play a team like that, especially since we’ll play them next season.”

Another team the ’Cats will see next year is rival Michigan Tech. NMU beat the Huskies in both sets 25-17 and 25-19 to finish out their day at the tournament. Yoder said he was happy with the win but knows his team has to carry this kind of play into the fall to be successful.

“To go 4-0 and beat Michigan Tech, that’s just another feather in our cap,” Yoder said. “We’re really happy about doing that, but again it is spring and when we get into fall they got to turn the corner and still progress to be successful.”

The team is spending a lot of practice time working on serving and floor position. Yoder said he likes where the team stands from an offensive perspective, but that the defense needs to get more consistent for the team to keep achieving success.

“Defensively, we were night and day,” Yoder said. “Offensively we we’re pretty consistent with where we were the first weekend. We can definitely score points, it is just up to our defense to be able to slow teams down.”

The Wildcats also beat the UW-Green Bay Alumni in three matches, winning the first 25-11, dropping the second 20-25 and capturing the third 15-13. NMU plays again this weekend on Saturday, April 2, as they travel to the University of Minnesota Duluth to participate in their tournament.