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HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. - A senior night isn't complete unless the home team picks up a victory, and Northern Kentucky University made sure that mission was accomplished Friday evening in Regents Hall. And in memorable, come-from-behind fashion against Drury. After recognizing its two senior volleyball players (Andrea Lanham and Jennifer Wirtz) prior to the match, NKU rallied for a 16-30, 30-28, 27-30, 30-26, 15-2 win over Drury. The Norse attacked at a .923 clip in the fifth game, converting 12 kills in 13 attempts without an error, to pull out the victory. Tristen Dye slammed down five kills in five attempts in the fifth game and finished with 21 kills, 18 digs and a .333 hitting percentage. Andrea Price had three of her 16 kills in the fifth game and hit .367 for the match. The freshman outside hitter from St. Henry High School also added 17 digs as NKU improved to 19-11 overall, 10-5 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference. A year ago, Drury knocked off NKU in a five-game thriller at Springfield, Mo. The same type of drama unfolded again Friday night as Drury made its first-ever appearance in Regents Hall. The Panthers wasted no time against NKU, jumped out to a 20-9 lead and coasted to a 30-16 victory. NKU battled back in the second game and hit .421 en route to a 30-28 win. With the score tied at 28-all, Kristina Eisenmenger hammered down an attack to give NKU a 29-28 edge. An attack error by Drury gave the Norse a 30-28 victory and tied the match at a game apiece. Eisenmenger had eight kills and hit .500 in the second game, while Dye added four kills and attacked at a .571 clip. Drury posted a 30-27 win over NKU in the third game, but the Norse rallied behind Eisenmenger and Lanham in the fourth set to take a 30-26 victory and send the match to a deciding fifth game. Eisenmenger collected six of her team-leading 22 kills and hit .667 in the fourth game, while Lanham added three kills in four attempts and dished out 15 assists.
NKU scored the first four points of the deciding game and built an 11-1 lead behind the play of Dye, Price and Liz Holmes, who put down three missile-like attacks on the Drury side of the court in the fifth set. Holmes finished with 16 kills, 14 digs and a .379 hitting percentage. Holmes, a graduate of Mercy High School in Cincinnati, upped her career total in kills to 1,245. She is also attacking at a .391 clip this season. Lanham, a graduate of Notre Dame Academy, dished out 63 assists, served up five aces and added nine digs for NKU. She now has 4,566 career assists and ranks second all-time in Norse history in that category. The Norse hit .341 as a team and finished with a 76-45 advantage in digs Friday. Courtney Hendrickson led Drury (13-15, 6-9 GLVC) with 17 kills. The Panthers, in their second season of competing in the GLVC, hit .251 as a team. NKU will close out GLVC regular-season play at 2 p.m. Saturday against Rockhurst, which is ranked No. 17 nationally in the Division II poll. NKU is currently tied with Indianapolis for fourth place in the GLVC standings with 9-5 records, and those two teams will meet in the first round of the GLVC Tournament. Southern Illinois at Edwardsville has already clinched the No. 1 seed in the GLVC Tournament, which begins Nov. 2. NKU and Indianapolis played twice this season, and the Greyhounds won both meetings with the Norse.
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