#6 southwest minnesota state (13-2, 5-0 nsic) now has the longest conference winning streak in the northern sun, defeating #4 concordia-st. Paul (14-2, 5-1 nsic) in a closely contested five game match (30-24, 26-30, 30-27, 20-30, 17-15) that snapped the golden bears' conference winning streak at 69 matches, the third-longest such streak in ncaa division ii history.

the last time concordia had lost to a team in the nsic was october 31, 2003 against former and future northern sun member minnesota duluth. During the streak, concordia defeated smsu ten times and it is the mustangs first win against the golden bears in 12 matches in brady strakey's five years as head coach.

the streak included all matches played against northern sun opponents, including nsic and ncaa tournament matches. Concordia won 13 postseason matches, including four in the ncaa regional.

concordia's only two losses have come against the fourth and sixth ranked teams in the nation, each match a tight five game contest.

the five game thriller reached it's peak in the deciding fifth game. Concordia started the game with a 4-1 lead when whitney meierotto drilled a kill off a maggie mcnamara set.

but coming out of the ensuing timeout, the mustangs would score the next seven points to take an 8-4 lead following one of erin contons' 19 kills.

the young golden bears would not fold, however, scoring seven of the next nine points to take an 11-10 lead.

the teams jostled for position until smsu broke a 12-12 tie with back-to-back points to put concordia at match point.

freshman emily palkert would step up in the pressure and deliver a decisive kill and mcnamara followed with an ace to tie the score at 14.

but concordia was unable to take the upper hand as smsu would win the final game 17-15 on an attack error by sadie kessler.

junior maria steinhagen matched contons' match-high 19 kills. Steinhagen hit a match-high .444, committing just three errors in 36 attacks. She also had a match-high six blocks.

palkert delivered 17 kills in the match and would add four blocks.

much like last night, mcnamara did a nice job of distributing the attacks amongst her teammates as five players had at least 25 attempts and no one had more than 39 swings. All five had at least nine kills.

mcnamara notched 56 assists while contributing eight digs and four blocks (one solo) on defense.

the defense was led by sophomore libero mary slinger who had 19 digs while whitney meierotto had 14 and rachel knutsen had ten. Meierotto had another double-double with 10 kills.

the golden bears will face yet another ranked opponent on tuesday, september 25 when they travel to sioux falls, s.d. To face #13 augustana college.

box score - smsu 3, csp 2