tampa, fla. - it is a new season but concordia kept up its winning ways, extending it winning streak to 75 by blanking northern kentucky university 3-0 (25-6, 25-19, 25-16) in fifty minutes. Head coach brady starkey is now 8-0 in season openers and the golden bears have not lost a season opening game since 2001. Concordia (1-0) was led by emily palkert and cassie haag who each had 11 kills. Sophomore kara pioske added seven kills while hitting .500 . Freshman kayla koenecke could not be stopped as she hit .750 during the game and tallied six kills.

the golden bears setter amanda konetchy had 33 assists as well as two kills and two service aces in the season opener. taylor fieldsted led the way with six digs, while koenecke and megan carlson each added five.

cu hit .416 during the match while holding nku to .165. The golden bears also had five aces, six blocks and 31 digs as a team. Koenecke had two solo blocks to add to her statistics in her first college game.

concordia came out on fire in the first set and hit a remarkable .529 while holding nku to a -.238 hitting percentage. Cu jumped out to an early 4-0 lead before nku scored a point. A kill by haag made it 5-1 and then carlson served the golden bears to a insurmountable 17-1 lead. Cu and nku went back and forth for a bit before concordia took the first set 25-6.

the golden bears fell behind 2-0 in the second set before rebounding and taking the lead at 7-6 and never relinquished it. The key swing came with the golden bears leading 14-13, cu took advantage of a serving error and went on a run to take a 18-13 lead.

concordia and northern kentucky battled well in the third set matching each other throughout. The score was 19-16 in favor of cu when they went on a run, scoring six straight points to win the set 25-16.

the golden bears are back in action this afternoon when they take on grand valley state at 2:45. The action can be seen online through live stats and video.

live stats

live video