PICTURED: Seniors Hayley Brake (5) and Abigail McKowen (8)

In just one short season, coach Natalie Dietz has taken the North Park volleyball program to heights it hasn't seen in recent years.

With the help of two solid senior student-athletes in Abigail McKowen and Hayley Brake along with a slew of young but energetic first and second year student-athletes, the Vikings head into an offseason full of promise.

That couldn't have been more evident than in the Vikings' 25-23, 25-16, 30-28 victory over visiting North Central College Tuesday night, NP's first College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin victory of the season, its first since the 2013 campaign and the first for Dietz, who became the first coach to win a CCIW conference match in her initial campaign in the last nine years.

North Park fed off the energy of its near sellout student section crowd who cheered the Vikings on point-for-point in the straight-set victory, which was NP's third win to finish out the season.

After seizing the momentum and setting the tone with its high-powered offense – led by Brake, and freshmen Lauren Wiltsie, Emily Farwell and Sarah Hua-Pham – in the first two sets, the Vikings seemed poised to walk out with their most dominating performance of the season as they held an early 9-8 advantage on an NCC hitting error in the third. But to their credit, the Cardinals fought their way back into the set and worked their way to set point at 24-20 by scoring four of the set's next seven points after taking a 21-17 lead. North Park utilized two Cardinal hitting errors and back-to-back kills from Brake and Darby Switzer however to pull even at 24-24. Both teams then traded points before a kill from Hua-Pham and a Kelly Clinton service ace finished out the set and the match for a 30-28 triumph.

Both Brake and Wiltsie led the Vikings' net attack with 12 kills each while Hua-Pham and Farwell had seven each. Wiltsie also finished with 14 digs and Karen Rosales added 13. Switzer dished 37 assists. Cara Howell finished with 10 kills to lead the Cardinals, who had their four-match winning streak snapped.

North Park finishes the 2015 season with a 13-17 overall record, its best overall record since the 2011 season.