Toledo, Ohio— The Toledo women's volleyball team fell at home to Northern Illinois on Friday night by a score of 3-1 (25-19, 22-25, 23-25, 17-25).

Offensively, seniors Annie Beasley and Saige Thomas led the way for the Rockets with 12 and 11 kills, respectively. Junior Carly Townsend had a hand in almost every termination for UT tonight, registering 39 assists. Junior Maurissa Leonard and senior Lauren Bakaitis were the team leaders defensively with 27 and 17 digs, respectively.
Beasley led all comers with seven blocks and freshman Chloee Kleespies added four herself. NIU's Kaylee Martin led the match with 24 kills, including nine in the fourth and final set.

The loss drops Toledo's record to 7-10 and 2-3 in conference play. Next up for UT is a Saturday affair with Western Michigan. The match begins at 5:00 p.m. at Savage Arena.

First Set: The Huskies actually took the early lead, going ahead 9-6. From there, the Rockets rattled of four straight points to take a 10-9 lead, taking advantage of a few NIU errors. Toledo would not trail for the remainder of the frame, eventually winning 25-19. The set-clinching kill came off the hand of Beasley, her fifth of the set which led all comers. Toledo hit .303 in the first frame, its highest mark of the match.

Second Set: Toledo fell behind early, 5-2, and never led at any point in the second set. The NIU lead grew to 13-7 and the Rockets played from behind for much of the set, but they would fight back to tie things up at 19-19. UT scored seven of nine points to bring the score to a deadlock, with freshman Emma Swope delivering the 19th point that brought about the tie score. Northern Illinois regained control by scoring four straight points on kills from Martin and Meg Wolowicz. Toledo wasn't able to come back this time, and fell 25-22.

Third Set: Mirroring the second set, Toledo fell behind 5-2 early on in the third frame. This time, though, the Rockets held a share of the lead at various points, including very late (23-22). The Rockets trailed 22-19 and scored the next four points to take the very late lead over the Huskies, but couldn't close out the set and ended up falling 25-23. The set ended on an NIU service ace, one of the eight it tallied on Friday. Bakaitis had a set-high nine digs.

Fourth Set: In terms of the final score, the fourth set was the most lopsided of the night, with the Huskies winning 25-17. Thomas had five kills to lead the Rockets and Beasley had three, while Leonard led both teams with eight digs in the final frame. After leading 2-1 very early on, Toledo fell behind and wasn't able to overcome the NIU attack. The Huskies scored six of the final eight points on Friday to clinch the set and the match.


Highlights from UT's match against Northern Illinois.