ST. PAUL, Minn. - The #3 Concordia-St. Paul volleyball team (18-2, 10-2 NSIC) will look to remain unbeaten on the road this weekend as they travel to Minot State (5-16, 0-12 NSIC) on Friday and U-Mary (9-12, 4-8 NSIC) on Saturday. CSP enters the weekend with a record of 10-0 away from home so far this season.

THE MATCHUPS
Friday marks just the sixth meeting in the all-time series with Minot State as the Golden Bears have won the first five meetings. All five previous meetings have come since Minot State joined the NSIC with CSP claiming sweeps in four of the five. The Beavers claimed their only set win in the series in a match in Minot back on Oct. 25, 2013.

In last year's meeting with the Beavers, the Golden Bear offense was nearly unstoppable on the day as they hit .532 for the match, good for fifth best in D-II era program history. Concordia was consistent throughout the day as they hit at least .520 in each of the three sets. CSP also limited the Beavers to .157 hitting in the match. Leading the way in the ultra-efficient Concordia attack was Emma Lange. Lange hit an incredible .875 with a match-best 14 kills on just 16 attempts. The junior fell just short of qualifying for the school record, but would have ranked second in program history with her .875 hitting percentage.

Against the Marauders, Concordia has gone a perfect 15-0 heading into this weekend's match. The Golden Bears have dominated the series as they have swept the last 12 meetings and 14 of 15 overall. The only meeting that didn't end in a sweep was a five-set win for CSP in Bismarck on Sept. 28, 2007.

Last year in St. Paul, Concordia cruised to a comfortable sweep of U-Mary. Concordia dominated from start to finish as they hit .292 in the match and held the Marauders .073 in an all-around team effort. CSP had five different players put up at least seven kills and five different players contribute nine digs on the night. Emma Lange was impressive with 12 kills and a .391 hitting percentage to go along with five blocks, three digs and three assists in a full performance while Emily McDonough fell a dig short of a double-double with 10 kills and nine digs with a .381 hitting percentage.

LAST TIME OUT
On Tuesday night, the Golden Bears held their opponent to a negative hitting percentage for the second match in a row as they rolled past Minnesota State on Dig Pink night at Gangelhoff Center.

CSP made things difficult for the Mavericks as MSU finished the match at -.029. Concordia picked up 52 digs and and 6.0 total blocks as MSU had just 21 kills on the night. Offensively, Concordia also found success as they finished the match at .357 as they picked up 45 kills with just 10 errors on 98 swings. The team hit at least .303 in each set as they had 44 assists compared to 19 for MSU.

Leading the way for the Golden Bears on the offensive attack was junior Mariya Sampson as she led all players with 13 kills. The 13 kills was a season-high for her as she also chipped in a block and a dig. Anna Schlaak stayed hot as she made it eight straight matches in double figures in kills with 11 as she added 10 digs for her fifth double-double in the last seven matches. Riley Hanson also added nine kills and three blocks in the win.

IN THE POLLS
After spending the first five weeks in the top spot in the AVCA Poll, CSP has ranked outside the top spot in the past three weeks. Concordia has been a mainstay near the top of the poll for over a decade as they haven't ranked outside the top-10 since 2003 and have spent just one week outside the top-5 since October 2012. With their five weeks in the top spot to begin the year, the Golden Bears have now spent an incredible 70 weeks at #1 since they debuted there in the 2003 preseason poll. Since the 2007 season, CSP has ranked #1 at least once every season.

NATIONAL LEADERS
Heading into this week, Concordia has a pair of players that rank first and second in the country in statistical categories while the team ranks second in three categories.
 
Riley Hanson returned to the top spot in hitting percentage with an efficient mark of .431 as she moved back to the top spot after being in the top-3 the past few weeks. Kasey Williams ranks second in assists per set at 12.19, trailing only SMSU's Megan Larson in the category.
 
The team also sits at second the nation with 13.98 assists per set and 14.77 kills per set while their team hitting percentage of .319 also sits in second.

REACHING 1,000
In the past few weekends, Concordia has seen a pair of players reach 1,000 as Anna Schlaak joined the 1,000 kill club and Emily McDonough joined the 1,000 dig club.
 
Two weekends ago at Augustana, senior Anna Schlaak became the 18th member of the 1,000 kill club at Concordia as she earned AVCA National Player of the Week and NSIC Offensive Player of the Week in the process.
 
Schlaak joined teammate Riley Hanson, who reached that plateau last season, as the two current players to reach that mark. Since then, Hanson has pushed her career total to 1,333 kills to move into seventh in program history, surpassing Cassie Haag and Valerie Olson on Tuesday night.
 
The Golden Bears could see another member of the squad reach the mark this season as Emma Lange enters the weekend with 882 kills in her career, sitting 118 kills shy of the mark.
 
On the defensive side, senior libero Emily McDonough surpassed the mark of 1,000 digs last Saturday against Sioux Falls as she became the 14th player in Concordia history to join the club.
 
She isn't the only one closing in as Schlaak has 925 digs, just 75 shy of 1,000, going into the weekend. If she were to reach the mark, she would become the fifth member of the prestigious 1,000/1,000 club in kills and digs at CSP and only the third to do so entirely at Concordia.
 
Senior Kasey Williams also sits in range of 1,000 as she has picked up 885 digs in her career to go along with 4,046 assists. In addition to nearing 1,000 digs, she became the fourth player at Concordia to reach 4,000 assists as well.