HAMMOND – As part of the 2014 Northwestern State volleyball team, Caiti O'Connell made history by reaching the NCAA Tournament last December.
 
She did not realize until before the 2015 season just how close she was to making individual history.
 
O'Connell's individual moment arrived Thursday night in a 3-1 victory against New Orleans when a third-set kill made her the seventh member of Northwestern State's 1,000-kill club.
 
"For me, it's really cool," said O'Connell, the 2012 Louisiana Sports Writers Association All-Louisiana Freshman of the Year. "I didn't realize I was that close or that it was a possibility. To get it when the whole team was clicking, that was the icing on the cake."
 
O'Connell's milestone came on a night where she tallied a season-best 16 kills and helped NSU (5-17, 3-6) collect its first back-to-back wins of the season. The senior outside hitter and her teammates will attempt to stretch that streak to three Saturday when they face Southeastern Louisiana (9-11, 3-3) at 2 p.m.
 
By reaching 1,000 kills, O'Connell became part of a select group of NSU volleyball players. More impressively, O'Connell became the third member of her recruiting class to reach the mark, joining Stacey DiFrancesco and Mackenzie Neely.
 
"That's cool that they're there," O'Connell said. "It's a testament to the program and how hard we've worked, but we couldn't do it if we didn't have other people scoring and setting. It's a tribute to how hard we've worked."
 
O'Connell has been representative of the offensive improvement that has mirrored NSU's two-match win streak.
 
Northwestern State hit a then-season-best .330 against Stephen F. Austin on Tuesday and followed that up with a blistering .364 hitting percentage against New Orleans on Saturday.
 
In her last two matches, O'Connell has 26 kills and has hit .465.
 
"The last two matches, she's had great matchups and, to her credit, she's taken complete advantage of those," first-year head coach Kiracofe said. "When they've adjusted their defense to stop her, either Glynna (Johnson) or Amanda (Kunz) have been able to make the defense pay for that. Then we can go back to Caiti, and she can start scoring again. It says a lot about Caiti's ability to score at the net with that consistency throughout her career to get 1,000. That's impressive."
 
O'Connell agreed with her coach's assessment of her and the team's offensive surge.
 
"The last two games, we haven't figured it all out, but everything's clicked together," she said. "We've had great passes and great sets. That's the reason why we've been able to do that. I've gotten great sets and been able to swing away. We've had blockers on the other side that are smaller. That helps, too."
 
O'Connell just missed hitting the milestone at home, collecting it in NSU's first of a six-match road trip, and was quick to deflect credit for her accomplishments.
 
"It would have been awesome to do it at home with my family there," she said. "It was really cool just to get to the point in general. It really shows how much work everybody's put in. It feels like I've been here forever, and it's something that really is a testament to the program and how we've come to where we are."