The Newark volleyball team was able to put together short scoring runs in the middle of each set during Wednesday night’s match at Bader Gym in Ottawa against Marquette.

The Norsemen (2-0) then kept the Crusaders (0-2) at arm’s length and eventually posted a 25-20, 25-16 victory.

Newark senior Heather Buhle played a key role in those middle set rallies and finished with a match-high eight kills and eight service points, including four aces.

“I’m feeling confident, and a lot of that comes from playing a lot of club volleyball in the offseason,” Buhle said. “I wasn’t a go-to player last season, but this year I am, and I’m enjoying the challenge of that.

“I really felt in the zone in that first set. I felt like after putting a couple of good swings on the ball I was in a groove. It felt like as a team were really in sync for most of the match.”

Newark held a one-point lead in the opening set before three winning swings from Buhle and a kill by Rylie Carlson pushed the advantage to 16-11. From there the teams traded points until a Buhle tip and Marquette serving error gave the set to the visitors.

“We knew coming in here tonight that Marquette is going to be very scrappy defensively,” Newark coach PJ McKinney said. “I told our hitters that we were just going to have to keep hitting and adjust as we went. Heather really got us going both at the net and at the service line.

“I thought our serving was very solid, and our defense was pretty good as well. Do we have stuff to keep working on? Oh yeah, but I felt like we did a good job of transitioning from defense to offense.

“We are still trying different things as far as the lineup goes, but these girls are very smart, pick up things fast and do a great job adjusting to whatever and wherever I put them.”

Newark held a 12-9 lead in the second set before a kill and block by Carlson and a pair of aces by Buhle pushed it to 19-10. A pair of kills by the Crusaders’ Kaitlyn Davis and another by Ava Offerman closed the gap, but a match-point ace by Taylor Jeffers sealed the win.

Carlson finished with six kills and nine digs, Jeffers eight digs and five assists, and Ella Bromeland eight assists.

Kelsey Cuchra paced Marquette with four kills, two blocks and an ace. Lucy McGrath had three kills, and Kinley Rick and Davis two kills apiece.

“We had eight net violations alone in the second set and five service errors,“ Marquette coach Mindy McConnaughhay said. “You can’t spot teams, especially one as talented as Newark, that many points and expect a good outcome.

“Our youth showed with three sophomores out there a majority of the time. But I also thought we played really well defensively. We had a number of digs on balls that were just smoked, but unfortunately many of those we weren’t able to keep the momentum by getting the point.

“We are still trying to figure things out, and we will, but tonight we just made too many errors. That said, they are fixable ones.”

Marquette is back in action Thursday hosting Woodland, while Newark is off until next Tuesday when it travels to play Gardner-South Wilmington.