Noah Fries | sports editor

The Duquesne volleyball team dropped its first two matches of the 2026 campaign to Northern Kentucky and College of Charleston before defeating Power Four opponent Notre Dame over the weekend at the Steve Baumrind Invitational in Charleston, South Carolina.

The win over Notre Dame was the 400th victory at Duquesne for Head Coach Steve Opperman. With the win, Opperman became just the 21st active Division I head coach to have at least 400 victories at their current program.

“It was fun because it came against Notre Dame, but it’s not about me.” Opperman said. “It’s about our athletes and my other coaches. It’s a testament to training our kids, doing everything we can from scouting to all of those other little things that are involved with the program.”

After a bus trip that took up nearly half of Wednesday, the Dukes would have an early start Friday morning to take on Northern Kentucky. Duquesne would start out slow, hitting just .068 to the tune of 14 kills to 11 attack errors. Despite the sluggish start, the Dukes would have set point at 24-22 before a 4-0 run from the Norse would steal the set.

Both teams would hit nearly .300 in the second set, with both squads trading blows until the Norse would have set point at 24-20. The Dukes would try to fight back with a quick burst, but a kill from Norse senior outside hitter Sydney Bray would put the set away and push the Dukes to the brink.

The Dukes wouldn’t go away without a fight, pushing back and tightening up the defense to take 25-18 and 25-16 set wins and push the match to the decisive fifth set, only played to 15. Duquesne would hold Northern Kentucky to hitting percentages of -.094 and .125 in sets three and four.

The Norse would jump out to an early 6-2 lead in the fifth set and would lead 10-5 before the Dukes would go on a 3-0 run to cut the deficit — punctuated by three kills from junior outside hitter Emersen Schrom. Duquesne would be unable to get any closer than two, losing the set 15-12 and taking the team’s first loss of the season.

The Dukes would win almost every single stat category in comparison to the Norse but would fall victim to their own errors.

Three Dukes would notch double-digit kills: Schrom (18), freshman right side hitter Simone Searles (16) and freshman outside hitter Londyn Stone (12). Senior setter Chloe Wilmot quarterbacked her squad with 53 assists and five service aces.

Charleston would come out firing in the nightcap, with the match against Duquesne being the first home match of the season for the Cougars. The Cougars would hit .478 in the first set, committing just two attack errors en route to a 25-17 win.

The next two sets would be more of the same, as Duquesne’s offense stalled and the Cougars were firing on all cylinders. The Dukes would hit .031 and .000 in sets two and three, with hitting percentages of .259 and .478 being more than enough for Charleston to take the sweep with 25-16 and 25-10 set victories.

“We did everything right against Northern Kentucky — had too many hitting errors but won every statistical category,” Opperman said. “Hats off to Northern Kentucky. They did what they needed to do to win. We didn’t play very well against the College of Charleston. I don’t think we really matched their intensity from the first whistle.”

Duquesne wouldn’t let the previous day’s results define it as a matchup with Notre Dame loomed Saturday. The Dukes would jump out to a 25-19 set win, led by four kills from Searles and three from Schrom.

The Fighting Irish would push the Dukes to the brink with back-to-back set victories (25-18, 26-24). Duquesne wouldn’t go down without a fight, battling to extra points in the fourth set and winning with a service ace from Searles to push the match to five.

Schrom has been the leader on the team for the past two seasons, and the teamewould once again look to her to shine when they needed it most. Six kills and two aces in the tiebreaking stanza from Schrom would be exactly what the Dukes needed to battle back and defeat Notre Dame.

Schrom would tally 30 points for just the third time in her career with 23 kills, six aces and two block assists to go along with a team-high 16 digs. Searles would add 17 kills with Wilmot adding 48 assists.

“I think it speaks a lot to our grit,” Schrom said when asked about Saturday’s comeback. “I think that fell a little flat on Friday, but we realized that we needed to play together more. I think the comeback says a lot about our ability to look internally and fix problems as soon as they happen.”

Noah Fries can be reached at friesn@duq.edu