The No. 11 Oregon Ducks looked to coast to a win against the unranked Northwestern Wildcats, but the Ducks were caught by surprise when, after a dominant first set, Northwestern took the second set, and followed by keeping up with Oregon in the third.
In that third set, the Wildcats jumped on the Ducks by taking a 3-0 lead. After the Ducks rallied to make it 5-5, the two teams went back and forth the whole set. It looked like it was time for the Ducks to pull away up 19-15, but the Wildcats punched right back to tie it at 19. It continued to be closely contested until the fans at Matthew Knight Arena looked up to realize this match was deadlocked at 24. The crowd was rocking as it became 25-25, then 26-25, Oregon.
With the support from the rowdy fans, an explosive block from Onye Ofoegbu and Noemie Glover iced the set for the Ducks and fueled them to a dominant fourth set to win the match.
Oregon had outperformed Northwestern in kills. The Ducks had 62 kills compared to the Wildcats 44. Mimi Colyer, Michelle Ohwobete and Glover were the main contributors to Oregon's high kill count. Each player had electric kills in pivotal moments of the game, bringing energy to everyone on and off the court. But the main star of Friday's match in attacks was Ohwobete. She earned 20 kills the entire game, marking this as a season-high for the Ducks player.
“She was very consistent,” Ulmer said. “You get 20 kills in a game, you did something”.
The Ducks were coming off a bounce-back sweep of the Minnesota Golden Gophers going into this game, while Northwestern looked to keep things rolling after a 3-1 victory over Iowa. This win made it two in a row for the Ducks and put the Wildcats back in the losing column, as they have lost six of their last seven.
The match started off strong for Oregon, jumping out to a 6-3 lead before an electric Mimi Colyer kill extended the lead to 7-3. The Ducks kept pushing and following a kill from Ofoegbu, they found themselves up 18-10. Ofoegbu found herself in the action again with a block to make it 19-11 Ducks. After, she let out a roar to her teammates that fired up the team and crowd. That spark fueled Glover to get the kill that gave the Ducks Set 1 in this contest.
The second set was a different story. Northwestern got the first strike, jumping out to a 5-3 then an 8-6 lead early. The Ducks woke up, though, as a kill by Ohwobete sparked four straight points for Oregon to put it up 10-8. This started a back-and-forth between both teams that would last for the rest of the set. Oregon’s sloppy play kept this set close and looked to end the madness with a Coyler kill to make it 22-21 Oregon. That would be the final points the Ducks scored this set, as Northwestern ripped off four straight points to even this match at one set a piece.
Northwestern seemed to stay hot after that second set win. The Wildcats jumped out to a 3-0 lead before Oregon could blink. The Ducks quickly shut that down though, scoring four unanswered to give them an early 4-3 lead in Set 3. This set was nearly identical to Set 2, as these two teams duked back and forth. While it was close, the Ducks’ play stayed sloppy.
Northwestern had Oregon scrambling for the ball the entire third set, long rallies determining the winner of the point. The Wildcats were hot on the Ducks’ heels all of Set 3 and took any chance they could to tie up the score. This set was where the Ducks had made a lot of small mistakes and errors which ultimately cost them their score gap advantage.
“One long mess,” said head coach Matt Ulmer after the game, referring to the second and third sets. “We got really undisciplined, they stepped up their service pressure and they made some nice plays, made some better swings, but on plays we should have taken care of, we did not.”
The crowd in Matthew Knight was loud and supportive of the Ducks, cheering for every point they managed to get. After Northwestern tied the match at 25-25, every player on the court was determined to end this fight, Colyer accepting the challenge as her kill put the Ducks at a one-point advantage. The match ended with a block from Ofoegbu and Glover. The final score was 27-25.
A three-point rally for the Ducks would be shut down with the same from the Wildcats, and vice versa. Just when the Ducks thought they had this set in the bag with a 19-15 lead, the Wildcats rallied back with four straight points capped off by a block from Sophia Summers to make it 19-19. After some more back and forth, it was all of a sudden a 25-25 tie. That’s when the stars got to work. A kill from Coyler followed by a monstrous block by Glover and Ofoegbu finally put down the pesky Wildcats in the third set.
“I think we really underestimated the fight that we were going into,” Colby Neal said. “And we let ourselves be undisciplined. But I think we did a really good job after that second set of realizing that we were going to have to do a lot more to be able to compete against them”.
The fourth set was filled with more spirit and calculation. The Ducks had a near six-point lead the entire set. The Ducks seemed to have more determination to end the last set as they scrambled and played hard for every ball. Oregon managed to keep a good distance between itself and the Wildcats, not allowing them to catch up as fast as they did in the previous sets. For five straight points, the Ducks allowed Northwestern to catch up to them late in Set 4. The Wildcats scored point after point, making it 20-17 after they came back from a 19-12 score. For a moment, fans in the stands thought Northwestern was going to make a comeback and tie the game up. But kills from both Colyer and Glover secured the match for the Ducks as Colyer got them to 23-19 and Glover ended it at 25-20.
The Ducks led in service errors this match, having a total of 13 errors compared to Northwestern’s nine. Oregon averaged around four serving errors each set while Northwestern averaged around two. But despite this setback, the Ducks still managed to win three of the four sets played.
“I thought we tried to force things that we didn’t need to take away,” Ulmer said. “We just weren’t very disciplined. Definitely one of our worst serving matches in a long time”.
The Ducks are back on the road for their next two matchups against No. 23 USC on Sunday and Michigan State next Thursday.