2021 Northwestern volleyball preview

Temi Thomas-Ailara goes up for a tip attempt against Wisconsin.After the COVID-19 pandemic pushed their season back to the spring and with a difficult Big Ten-only schedule in the toughest conference in the nation awaiting them, head coach Shane Davis and Northwestern volleyball will finally get back on the court Friday night.

A two-game weekend series against Rutgers begins a 22-game gauntlet in which the Wildcats will face each conference opponent aside from Penn State and Ohio State in the same format, either staying home or traveling for a pair of weekend matches against the same team in each of the next 11 weeks. For Northwestern coming off of a promising, if slightly disappointing,…