Volleyball | 10.29.14

ST. PAUL, Minn. - The #3 Concordia University volleyball team (21-3, 14-2 NSIC) closes out their NSIC regular season home slate this weekend as they host Minot State (9-16, 6-10 NSIC) and U-Mary (4-21, 1-15 NSIC) at the Gangelhoff Center.

THE MATCHUPS... Friday's match marks the fourth meeting between the Golden Bears and the Beavers and second this season. All three meetings have come since Minot State joined the NSIC and all have resulted in a CU win. Back on Sept. 27th, the Golden Bears swept the Beavers in Minot. Riley Hanson was nearly perfect on the attack as she led the Golden Bears with 14 kills on 19 attempts while not committing a single error. Her .737 attack percentage was ties for eighth best in the Division II era and best since Kayla Koenecke hit .773 in 2012.

The Golden Bears are meeting the Marauders for the 13th time ever with Concordia holding a perfect 12-0 record. The only time that U-Mary has taken a set came back in 2007 as they pushed CU to five sets but Concordia came out on top. Back on Sept. 26th, the Golden Bear defense held an opponent below .000 hitting for the first time since September 15th, 2012 as the Marauders mustered just a -.020 attack percentage for the match with 21 kills and 23 errors. Concordia's offense wasn't far behind as they hit .374 as a team and committed just 10 errors. Offensively, Riley Hanson and Emma Lange were the only two Golden Bears in double figures in kills with 12 and 11, respectively. Both hit at a high percentage as Hanson hit .455 and Lange hit .500 along with five blocks.

LAST TIME OUT... Concordia continued their winning ways by picking up their sixth straight win with a sweep of Minnesota State on Tuesday night.

The match represented the Golden Bears' annual Dig Pink Night as the team wore pink in honor of breast cancer awareness. The team delivered a solid effort as they committed just eight attack errors on the night while hitting .354 and held the Mavericks to a .168 hitting percentage for the match.

Anna Schlaak provided 15 of the Golden Bears' 42 kills with an impressive .412 hitting percentage along with eight digs. Mariya Sampson was the only other Golden Bear in double figures in kills with 11 as she also hit an efficient .524.

PLAYERS OF THE WEEK... The Golden Bears have been well represented over the last few weeks in player of the week honors. Two weeks ago, Kasey Williams earned the distinctions of AVCA National Player of the Week as well as NSIC Setter of the Week while Anna Schlaak was also named the NSIC Offensive Player of the Week. This past week the Golden Bears picked up another NSIC Offensive Player of the Week honor as Riley Hanson earned the distinction this time.