When two volleyball teams end up requiring a fifth set to be played, every play becomes crucial.

The fifth set makes or breaks a team. Unfortunately for NIU, its fifth set against UW-Milwaukee became its breaking point.

After four sets were played between the Huskies and Panthers in which neither team had more than a five point lead, it could only be expected that the fifth set would be just as close as the previous four. It was hard to nail down the exact reason why NIU couldn’t gain the lead in that
final, crucial set.

“We didn’t finish,” NIU head coach Ray Gooden said.

There appeared to be three major reasons why NIU just couldn’t catch up to UW-M; being out-killed, making untimely errors and losing momentum to the opposition.

Although the Huskies were out-killed in the first set 12-14, they managed to out-kill the Panthers in the following three sets. In set five, however, the Panthers had seven kills compared to the Huskies five. Though NIU fired off more total attacks than UW-M, the majority could just not be executed.

The eight errors made by NIU in the fifth set actually caused more points to be awarded to UW-M than by the Panthers seven kills.

In any volleyball game, no set is filled with more pressure on both sides than the fifth set. When one team is able to go on a 10-2 streak, not too much can be done to repair the damage done to the disadvantaged side’s confidence. With only 15 points to a victory, it would take a big momentum turn to overcome odds like that.

Unfortunately for NIU, momentum in the fifth set was only on the side of the Panthers.

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