The Michigan volleyball team's momentum was gone by the fifth set. All that remained were the strange yet familiar vibrations of self-doubt and a lot of noise raining down from the Evanston crowd.

The set was tight for the first five points, but a Northwestern service error put the ball back into the hands of the Wolverines. Sophomore outside hitter Lexi Erwin dropped back to serve, and after a handful of Wildcat errors and two aces, Michigan found itself on the winning end of a 6-0 run. Northwestern never recovered.

The 20th-ranked Wolverines defeated the Wildcats in five sets. Michigan won the first two handily, 25-15 and 25-21. But Northwestern, energized by their home crowd, took the third set, 25-21. In the beginning of the fourth set the Wolverines went on a 4-0 run, but the Wildcats caught up to them at the 13-point mark, took the lead and didn't look back, winning 25-20.

While the Wolverines (3-5 Big Ten, 15-5 overall) clinched the series in the fifth set, 15-11, Michigan coach Mark Rosen was the first to admit that it was not a pretty win. But, strangely, he’s OK with that.

“I thought this was one of those wins where we had to battle,” Rosen said. “Our girls really had to fight hard. We’re always telling them about how they can win without their best game, and it’s no secret that in sets three, four and five we did not play that ‘A’ game. But I’m really proud of how they found a way to win it.”

Michigan pulled off the win by playing traditional Michigan volleyball. This game marked a return to a spread offense and strong serving. Four players racked up kills in the double digits — senior middle blocker Courtney Fletcher, sophomore middle blocker Jennifer Cross and redshirt junior Claire McElheny notched 10 kills apiece. Erwin led the pack with 20 kills and earned six service aces, two of which came in the crucial 6-0 run in the fifth set.

“Getting the win was a weight off our shoulders,” McElheny said. “It was the first one we’d had in a couple of weeks. We didn’t play as clean as we would have liked to, but it was a win. Hopefully it only gets better from here.”

In terms of rankings and Big Ten positioning, winning this game was incredibly important for the Wolverines. They came into the regular season undefeated, won their conference opener, and had only lost to ranked opponents before receiving a wake-up call from Wisconsin last weekend. The loss to the Badgers was devastating, causing the Wolverines to drastically rethink their entire game.

Having that kind of a gut-check at this point in the season is a hard thing to come back from, but this victory over the Wildcats is sure to give Michigan a little momentum in the right direction. It may or may not be the season turnaround that Michigan was hoping for, but without question it is a relief to finally break a losing streak.

“It felt really great to finally get out of our little funk,” Erwin said. “We won because we were less afraid of losing and more about finding a way to win.

“(Senior libero) Sloane (Donhoff) huddled us up at the beginning of that fifth set and told us that we needed to ‘take a stand and refuse to lose,’ and that’s what we did. It was just great to finally come out on top.”