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ST. PAUL, Minn. - The #1 Concordia University volleyball team (17-1, 9-0 NSIC) has a big home weekend with Sioux Falls (11-7, 3-6 NSIC) and #6 Southwest Minnesota State (14-3, 9-0 NSIC) come to town. Friday's match with the Cougars is set to start at 7:00 p.m. On Saturday, the only two undefeated teams in NSIC play face off on Dig Pink Night. Dig Pink is a breast cancer awareness event.
The Golden Bears are taking on the the Cougars for the seventh time in the school's history. The two teams have split the all-time series with each team winning three matches. Concordia is 2-0 against USF in NSIC play, winning both meetings last season.
Saturday marks the 48th meeting between two of the marquee volleyball programs in the NSIC. Concordia holds a slight 25-21-1 advantage in the series, but has dominated the series in recent history. After SMSU went 18-0-1 in the first 19 meetings, CU has turned it around by winning 25 of the last 28 meetings. The Mustangs, however, took down the Golden Bears last season in the NSIC conference tournament championship in five sets. Abbey Thissen led SMSU with 15 kills and Emilee Gutzmer had 48 assists and 16 digs. Concordia had 19 kills from
Ellie Duffy and 57 assists and 11 digs from
Amanda Konetchy in the loss.
Concordia moved to 17-1 and 9-0 in the NSIC on the season with two big road wins over #15 Wayne State and Augustana. The Golden Bears were able to avenge their only loss of the year in a five set thriller against the Wildcats on Friday. CU jumped out to a 2-0 lead before Wayne battled back to force a deciding fifth set. Concordia took care of business in the fifth set to put the match away. The Golden Bears extended their winning streak to 15 matches with a sweep of the Vikings on Saturday. CU has won 23 straight in NSIC regular season play.
Setter
Amanda Konetchy averaged an incredible 15.00 assists per game (120 total assists) in Concordia's two wins on the weekend while also chipping in 22 digs and a pair of aces. Friday was perhaps
Amanda Konetchy's best performance of her impressive college career as she finished the match with an NSIC record 77 assists and also added a career high 17 digs in the match. Her 77 assists surpassed SMSU's Cara Carson's mark of 74 set in 2010. She "only" had 43 assists in Saturday's three game sweep of the Augustana Vikings. Konetchy now leads the nation with 13.21 assists per game.
Kayla Koenecke was also outstanding for the Golden Bears in helping them extend their winning streak to 15 with 36 kills (4.88 per game) and 35 digs (4.38 per game) on the weekend. Koenecke set a new career high in what has been an illustrious career with 25 kills on Friday night against the #15 Wayne State Wildcats and also chipped in 19 digs to pick up the double-double. On Saturday, she once again picked up a double-double, her tenth of the year, with 14 kills and 16 digs. Koenecke hit an efficient .500 in the set and .395 on the weekend. Her .423 hitting percentage on the year leads the NSIC and is third in Division II.
As a team, Concordia ranks at the top of the country in three major statistical categories. The Golden Bears come into the match averaging 15.00 assists per game, a full .88 better than the second best in Division II. CU's .343 hitting mark dwarfs the next best percentage of .314, held by UMD. Concordia's 15.87 kills per set also paces Division II as they are .80 ahead of Central Region opponent Central Missouri.
