In the fourth set, with the game hanging in the balance, the game sits at 2-1 in Queen’s favor, with the set at 24-20, with NKU leading. The Norse want to close out this set to push the game to a set five.

Queen’s opposite side, Connor Dell, serves the ball “Wack,” the ball goes flying over the net straight for Griffin Wheatley. Wheatley digs the ball up to Nick Whitley. Whitley then sets it up for Adam Blair. 

Blair takes two steps back, then two steps forward, building power into his jump. In the air, he winds up “Boom” Blair, hits the ball going through over the net towards the floor. Dell tried to get to it, but the power and accuracy of Blair was too hard to recover from. The Norse grabbed the set win and pushed the game to a set five, 25-20.

After that fourth set, the momentum swung towards NKU, executing the final set, winning the game in a five-set thriller 3-2 and the fifth set 15-11 over Queens on 3/26.

This win for NKU moves them to 4-14 overall and 1-10 in conference play, while Queens move to 6-16 overall and 1-12 in conference play.

Wheatley and Juanmarco Diaz had their way against the Royals. Wheatley tied a game high of 19 kills, leading all hitters in hitting percentage with a .429. He also tallied seven digs and two blocks. Diaz finished the night with a double-double, 19 kills on a .342 hitting mark, while recording ten digs, three blocks and a service ace.

Head Coach of the Norse, Jim Palilonis, liked what he saw from Wheatley and Diaz with their great all-around game, great attitudes and great response to some tough times. 

“There was a lot of back and forth about trying to stop Griff and trying to do this. And so we challenged him. We said, You know what that means? It means we’re going to set Griff even more,” Palilonis said. “JD just showed what we’ve known all along, that the kids got all the ability in the world to do everything for us. I mean, it’s not even about the kills and the digs, little things like him in an out of system set, just that makes the difference in a huge moment.”

NKU men’s volleyball posing for a picture after their first-ever conference win over Queens. They took the Royals to five set coming out on top 3-2 on March. 26 2026.

The first set was a close battle with no team giving an edge. It was in the final plays of the set where the Royals went on a 5-2 run to close out the set 25-22. Queen’s Casey Maas was huge down this stretch, getting two kills.

The second set was the same, but flipped in the Norse’s favor. It was a fight until later in the set, where the Norse went on a 6-1 run to close out the set 25-21. Diaz came up big with three of his kills coming at the end of this set.

Like the whole game, the third set was another fight, going deep into extra points. Each team went on a little 2-0 run throughout the set, but no team pulled away. A 4-1 run by the Royals at the final points of the set got them the 28-26 win as they lead the game 2-1.

The Norse took care of the fourth set, leading most of the way throughout the sets as Adam Balir closed it out, winning the set 25-21, tying up the game 2-2.

In the fifth and final set of the game, the Norse got to a three-point lead 10-7, but Queens responded right back, going on a 3-0 run to tie it up at 10. A 5-1 run by the Norse closed out the set, 15-11. Will McElveen had two kills in this sequence, but Queens also helped out the Norse by having two back-to-back attack errors.

With this being the Norse’s first-ever conference win, it meant a lot to Palilonis and his team.

“It’s really important to qualify for the playoffs. It just kind of shows what we’ve talked about, the progression of the team, that we know we’ve been improving. We know we’re a good team. We just, you know, needed the opportunity to show it against the team that’s not ranked in the top 20,” Palilonis said.