denver, colo. - in a fine defensive showing, the golden bear volleyball team knocked off their third ranked opponent of the season with a 3-0 slaughtering of #23 metro state college (25-9, 25-14, 25-16). Concordia improves to 6-0 on the season while the roadrunners suffer their first loss at 5-1. The golden bears head into the playoffs of the true tournament saturday afternoon, playing at 1:00 pm with their opponent still to be determined. box score
the win for the golden bears keeps them undefeated on the young season and puts them among the best competition in the nation for tomorrow's matches. Entering the weekend, nine of the 12 competing teams are ranked in the top 25 nationally, with four sitting in the top 10. Concordia has a current 43 match winning streak.
the differences between the two offenses of concordia and metro state could not have been more apparent in friday's match, with the golden bears putting down 51 kills through a .300 hitting average, while the roadrunners managed only 22 kills with a lowly -.018 average. Metro state climbed out of negative hitting figures in just the third set of the match.
the golden bears ripped off 10 of the first 13 points to start the match, with emily palkert flexing her muscles early on. Concordia proved their dominance with 16 first set kills, while the team's defense easily handled metro's attacks, allowing the roadrunners only six kills in the 25-9 first set decision.
concordia kept the pressure on for the remainder of the match, only allowing metro to stay in the game for the first part of the final set. They were extremely effective in rallying for points and hardly ever went one-and-out on the serve. Bri morley was the only true threat for metro, finishing with 10 kills, but also committing six errors on the evening.
the golden bears took 11 kills and four block assists from palkert and saw yet another double-double from megan carlson, who finished with 10 kills and 12 digs. Rookie cassie haag had a phenominal match, tabbing nine kills in 13 attempts, failing to commit an error while attacking. The golden bears hit .300 on the evening.
the concordia defense was led by mary slinger with 16 digs and finished above the 50-dig mark for the second straight match. They came up with six team blocks. maggie mcnamara had 35 assists.
