NU volleyball (9-5, 0-2) did not exactly have the start to the season they envisioned on Friday and Saturday at Welsh-Ryan. The Wildcats fell in four sets to an Iowa team whose head coach just had the interim tag removed and that had their best hitter miss the trip, before a much more reasonable hard-fought three-set loss to the defending national runner-up Cornhuskers.
Before the weekend started, Northwestern received some good news: though they were still missing opposite hitter Danyelle Williams, libero Lexi Pitsas returned from injury to take her place in the starting lineup. But whether it was rust, over-excitement, or something else entirely, the ‘Cats sleepwalked through the first set, hitting at a shockingly low clip of -.