The Northern Kentucky University Women’s Volleyball Team’s hope of lengthening its Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament run this year was once again halted-this time by Rockhurst-in the first round played at the University of Indianapolis.
This is the second year the Norse have been knocked out in the first round. Rockhurst took out the Norse by the scores of 26-30, 30-24, 25-30, 30-25, 15-12. Liz Holmes, who was named GLVC Player of the Year earlier in the week, added four blocks, 22 kills, and 12 digs in the loss. Kristina Eisenmenger hit .404 and had 25 kills. Natalie Forbes had 64 assists and Tristen Dye collected 19 kills and 14 digs. But Rockhurst’s defense held the Norse and sent them home early.
On Nov. 12 the Norse received the fourth seed in the Great Lakes division of the NCAA Division II tournament, which matched them against number five seed Southern Illinois at Edwardsville to be played at Allendale, Michigan.
This was NKU’s first appearance in the NCAA Division II tournament since 2003 and unfortunately it would be cut short by a defeat. SIUE won the game with scores of 30-19, 30-26, and 0-18. Senior Liz Holmes had 10 kills, 10 digs and a .286 hitting percentage. Holmes was named the Daktronics Great Lakes Region Player of the Year Nov. 21 and finished her career at NKU with 1,850 kills, the most in school history. Dye, an outside hitter, was named to the Daktronics All-Great Lakes Region second team. She also earned a spot on the ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-District IV College Division volleyball first team. In her final match of her college career she added 10 kills and 12 digs. Katie Latenser had 14 digs, Natalie Forbes had 31 assists and Eisenmenger had nine kills. The Norse finished the 2007 season 26-9.
Holmes was named the Great Lakes Region Player of the Year and became the first NKU player to earn AVCA All-America honors three times.
She is just the third Norse standout to be selected to the All-America first team, joining Jessica Buroker (1999) and Kristin Koralewski (2003).