winona, minn. - for just the second time this season concordia (16-0, 7-0 nsic) dropped a set on their way to a 38th match win. The golden bears beat winona state 3-1 (25-18, 21-25, 25-12, 25-17) behind 20 kills from cassie haag (plymouth, minn.) and 27 digs from megan carlson (andover, minn.) the 27 digs tied carlson's career high as cu set their season high with 88 digs in the match. box score

four golden bears had 10+ digs on the evening. taylor fieldsted (lakeville, minn.) had 22 digs second best on the team. kayla koenecke (delano, minn.) had 15 and ellie duffy (fridley, minn.) set a career high with 14. Koenecke tied her career high with 16 kills in the match. katie habeck (farmington, minn.) was third on the team with 11 kills and three blocks. Haag also added three blocks in the match, while hitting .438 with those 20 kills. Duffy finished with nine kills and carlson finished with seven. amanda konetchy (victoria, minn.) had a season high 57 assists in the match to guide the cu offense.

the golden bears fell behind early in set one falling behind 4-0 before scoring a point thanks to a service error. Down 5-1 the golden bears went streaking scoring seven straight points to force a wsu timeout. Duffy had three kills during the run. Midway through the set cu held a 12-8 lead. The golden bears extended the lead to 18-12 forcing a winona state timeout. The to worked as the warriors rallied to get within 18-16. Concordia kept swinging and held a 24-17 lead before winning the set 25-18.

winona state took an early lead in set two as well going up 4-1 and 8-2 early on. A thunderous block by haag tried to send the match back in favor of the golden bears but wsu was forcing several attack errors to hold a 11-6 lead. The golden bears got within one at 15-14 thanks to a service error, two haag kills and an attack error. The warriors would not be denied and held a late lead in set two at 22-17. Winona state ended up taking the set 25-21 on a solo block.

concordia jumped out to a 8-3 lead in set two, forcing an early wsu timeout. Concordia continued to you pour it on in the early going taking a 13-5 lead. Wsu tried to come back at 13-8 but could not over come the concordia offense trailing 21-11 late in the third set. Cu hit .443 in the third set, winning the set 25-12.

in the fourth set the golden bears jumped out to a 6-1 lead and then continued to pull away going up 13-4. The lead would get as large as 22-12 in the final set. Haag had six kills alone in the set as cu went on to win 25-17.

this weekend cu will host upper iowa on friday at 7:00 p.m. And then welcome winona state on saturday at 3:00 p.m. Concordia has now won 79 straight nsic regular season matches and 77 straight nsic road matches in conference play.

photos by justin oakman