saint paul, minn. - for the first time since the national championship match in 2010, the #1 golden bears (11-0, 3-0 nsic) dropped at set on their way to a 3-1 victory over #14 minnesota state (9-3, 1-2 nsic). ellie duffy set a new career high with 18 digs in the match to lead a cu offense that was held to .255 hitting. kayla koenecke, megan carlson and katie habeck all had double digit kills in the match. taylor fieldsted returned after missing two games to lead cu with 24 digs. box score
the mavericks did a great job attempting to shut down some of the best hitters in the nation by holding koenecke and carlson to hitting percentages of just .263 and .154 respectively. Going in to the match the two were hitting an outstanding .446 and .383 on the year ranking in the top-36 in the nation. Koenecke came into this week seventh in the nation. Habeck had 11 kills and hit .500 as they could not find a way to stop her. amanda konetchy finished with 52 assists her season high as cu went four sets for the first time all year.
despite losing a set concordia extended its winning streak to 33 matches along with its home match winning streak to 55 and its nsic regular season match winning streak to 75. michelle graham had a career high four blocks helping cu keep up their winning ways.
in set one both teams struggled to find their offensive rhythm as cu hit just .175 and the mavericks hit .077. Concordia kept msu in the set by committing eight errors alone. The defensive was the story in set one as they dug up 22 balls and had five blocks, three by habeck. Concordia jumped out to a 9-3 lead early and held on to it taking the set 25-19.
the second set was a barn burner and saw msu take a lead midway through the set. With the score tied at 14-12 in favor of cu, the mavericks rattled off seven straight points to take a 19-14 lead. The deficit got as large as 22-16 before cu rallied. Head coach brady starkey called a timeout and must have said something right as cu battled back to tie the match at 23. A solo block by graham forced a msu timeout with a 23-21 lead but cu kept plugging. With the score at 23 all concordia's set streak came to end as the offense committed two straight errors to give msu the set 25-23.
after the 10 minute intermission, concordia came out on a mission. Msu scored the first two points in set two but then the golden bears went on the offensive scoring nine straight points and taking a 9-2 lead. Msu scored a point but it did not stop cu as they rattled off nine more straight points to take an 18-3 lead on the way to a 25-6 set victory. In set three cu hit .519 making a statement that their offense was still there.
set four was close through out msu held a 17-16 lead late in the set. The golden bears scored four straight points to take a 20-17 lead as they did not want to let the match go to a fifth set. Msu did their best to force that fifth set getting within one at 23-22 but starkey called a timeout and his cu squad responded scoring the next two points and taking set four 25-22.
carlson finished the game with a double-double with 12 kills and 16 digs. Koenecke also had a double-double with 14 kills and 11 digs. The team finished with nine total blocks.
concordia heads out on the road this weekend to take on minnesota, crookston and msu-moorhead on friday and saturday.
