Rallies Fall Short For Northwest In Volleyball Showdown Against Oakville

CEDAR HILL – After taking it on the chin in its five previous matches, the Northwest High girls volleyball team knew it needed to play much better than it had been, heading into a Tuesday night home match against first place Oakville High.

The Lions had been on quite a roll throughout most of September, with a five-match winning streak, which included a win over rival Rockwood Summit, and a sensational stretch of eight wins in 10 matches, they could count amongst their early season accomplishments.

But lately, Northwest was in a bit of a slump, and needed to somehow find its previous form, if it were going to pull off an upset against Suburban West Conference frontunner and No. 4-ranked Oakville.

And all things considered, the Lions probably played one of their better matches of the season, but it still wasn’t enough, as the powerful Oakville club handed Northwest a two sets to none loss by scores of 26-24 and 25-20.

“I thought we played excellent tonight,” Northwest head volleyball coach Julie Holstein said. “Our bench was really involved, you know, ready to go, and ready to get into the game. That’s the best team we’ve played so far this season, so it was a tough match.”

Indeed it was, especially in the early going, when Oakville jumped out to a six-point lead, which it held on to for almost the entire first set.

But after a net error gave the Tigers a 20-14 lead, Northwest rallied to win seven of the next eight points to tie the score at 21.

Senior hitters Alyssa Arnold and Nicole Brueggemann were key figures during the stretch that brought the Lions back.

Brueggemann won two points with a pair of dynamite kills at the net, and Arnold added two kills and a spectacular block that seemed to fire up the entire Northwest bench.

“There were several games early in the season where they got down and came back,” Holstein said. “So now they know they can come back. They have that experience. They just didn’t happen to pull it out this time. But it’s good for the kids to have the confidence to know that they can.”

Oakville eventually won the first set, 26-24, when two Tiger defenders stuffed a kill attempt by Northwest’s Katelyn Woddail to claim the final point.

In the second set, Northwest fell behind quickly again, but rallied back again, behind some better defensive play on the backline and the fantastic net play of Arnold, who finished the match with a game high nine kills, three blocks, and three service aces.

Oakville led by as much as 15-7, but the Lions climbed back to within 20-18, before a series of hitting and passing errors allowed the Tigers four straight points to make the score 24-18.

“We’ve got to get better on some of our hitting and passing that’s for sure,” Holstein said. “We made too many mistakes with both to beat a really good team like Oakville. But we’re getting better, and that was definitely better than how we had played (lately).”

Northwest did get as close as 24-20 in the second set, but Oakville’s Jennifer Wolken put the match away, when she killed the final point to clinch the Tigers’ win.

Oakville is now 21-4 on the season, and 7-0 in league play, while Northwest fell to 10-9-2 overall and 1-5 within the conference.

The Lions won’t have much time to think about Tuesday’s loss, because they’ll be right back in action on Wednesday, with a road game at Mehlville High at 5:15 p.m.

The Panthers are winless in the Suburban West this season, so it’s imperative for Northwest, if it has any chance of moving up in the league standings, that it pick up that win against the league’s last place team.

Oakville is done with match play for the rest of the week, but the Tigers will be back in action Tuesday night, back at home, with a matchup against Lindbergh High, which is slated for a 5 p.m. start.