HAMMOND, Ind. – The Purdue Northwest women's volleyball team hosted the season opener Thursday night against Wayne State for the squad's first competition in 460 days. The visiting Warriors came out on top in straight sets: 25-18, 25-23, 25-22.

Erica Brohm led PNW with six kills while three others recorded five, including Kenzie Duggan, Summer Clark and Bryanna Moonen. Libero Danielle Fowler gathered a team-high 16 digs and setters Abigail Negri and Holly Faley combined for 22 assists, with 12 and 10, respectively. Clark led the Pride with 8.0 points in the match with five kills and three aces.

PNW registered a total team hitting percentage of .028 and the visitors finished with an .200 overall mark. The Warriors held an 8-1 advantage in total team blocks as the Black & Gold logged a 6-5 edge in service aces.

Purdue Northwest was forced to dig itself out of a hole in all three sets as Wayne State jumped out to big leads and held on. The Warriors led 13-3 in the opening frame before the Pride climbed back to get within four, but the early deficit proved too much.

PNW got rolling near the end of the second stanza with a furious run. After staring down a seven-point deficit with WSU ahead 20-13, the Pride picked up eight of the next 10 points to get within one. A Duggan kill made it 22-21, then the teams exchanged the next four serves, but PNW couldn't string together back-to-back points as WSU won the see-saw affair.

The same result happened in the third set as PNW went down 15-5, but fought all the way back to get within a point at 22-21. Kills from Clark, Duggan, Negri and Sanders got the momentum going, but the Pride were unable to avoid the sweep.

WSU's Taylor Wagner led the Warriors with 15 kills while hitting .400 on the night. Lauren VanderWal added 10 kills for the visitors.

NEXT UP
The two teams will face off tomorrow at 1 p.m. inside the Fitness & Recreation Center. The match can be viewed live at JEDtv.com.