Volleyball | 11.18.16

ST. PAUL, Minn. - The top-seeded #1 Concordia Golden Bears volleyball team (27-2) are set to take on fifth-seeded #6 Winona State (25-4) in the NSIC Tournament semifinals on Saturday afternoon at Gangelhoff Center as the two teams battle for a spot in the NSIC Championship on Sunday.

THE MATCHUP
In a rematch of last season's NSIC Championship match, the Golden Bears will look to maintain their dominance in the all-time series. Concordia will look to improve on their record of 28-8 against the Warriors , including 26 wins in the past 27 meetings. On their home court, CSP has been even more successful with 16 straight wins at home over WSU since 2000. Last season, Winona State broke a 24-match CSP winning streak in the series with a four-set win in Winona on Sept. 19 of last year, but Concordia has bounced back to win the last two.

Back on Sept 17 in St. Paul, the Golden Bears rolled to a sweep of the then-#9 Warriors in the lone regular season meeting. In the win, CSP hit an impressive .400 as a team in the win, with three different hitters hitting .450 or better. The Golden Bears also showed their dominance at the net with a strong 11.5-0.0 advantage in the blocks category while also collecting 17 less hitting errors than WSU (23-6).

The senior duo of Riley Hanson and Emma Lange each finished with 10 kills as Hanson didn't commit an error while hitting .625 and Lange picked up four blocks. Anna Schlaak and Anna Pioske also picked up seven kills as Schlaak had 11 digs and five blocks while Pioske had six digs and three blocks.

LAST TIME OUT
On Wednesday night, the Golden Bears booked their spot in the semifinals with a sweep of eighth-seeded Minnesota State in the opening round.

The Golden Bear defense was stifling as they held the Mavericks to just .028 hitting in the match with 9.0 total blocks on the night. The offense wasn't far behind with an impressive mark of .365 hitting with 42 kills on 96 swings. CSP also held an edge of 52-42 in the digs as well as a 4-2 edge in service aces in an all-around effort.

Emma Lange was especially impressive with a team-leading 12 kills on 16 swings without an error to finish with a hitting percentage of .750 on the night. Lange's .750 hitting percentage also represented an NSIC Tournament record, surpassing her own mark of .679 from last year. Riley Hanson wasn't far behind as she picked up nine kills with a .562 hitting percentage to go along with nine blocks (one solo and eight block assists) in a dominant performance.

NSIC TOURNAMENT HISTORY
Entering the weekend, Concordia has gone 19-4 overall in the tournament as they will look to book their seventh trip to the NSIC Championship after going 6-2 in eight previous semifinal matches. In the six previous trip to the title match, the Golden Bears have won four titles (2004, 2005, 2006 and 2015). Last season, the Golden Bears knocked off Minnesota State, Minnesota Duluth and Winona State en route to claiming their first title in nine years.

IN THE POLLS
After spending the first five weeks in the top spot in the AVCA Poll, CSP has returned to the top spot in each of the past three weeks after after four weeks at #2 and #3. 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. The Golden Bears have now spent an incredible 73 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 players that rank first and second in the country in statistical categories while the team ranks either #1 or #2 in three categories.
 
Riley Hanson sits in the top spot in hitting percentage with an efficient mark of .446 as she leads all players by a full .030 percentage points. Kasey Williams ranks second in assists per set at 12.12, trailing only SMSU's Megan Larson in the category.
 
The Golden Bears as a team lead the nation with a .334 hitting percentage while also ranking second with 14.11 assists per set and second with 14.86 kills per set.

ALL-CONFERENCE HONORS
Last week, the Northern Sun released their All-NSIC Volleyball teams and the Golden Bears had five players named to the team. Riley Hanson, Emma Lange, Anna Schlaak and Kasey Williams were all named to the First Team and Emily McDonough was named to the Second Team. This marks the sixth time since 2005 that CSP has had five selections while they picked up a program-record six selections in 2008.

REACHING 1,000
This season, Concordia has seen a pair of players reach 1,000 as Anna Schlaak joined the 1,000 kill club and 1,000 dig club while Emily McDonough joined the 1,000 dig club.
 
Back on Oct. 7 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. She also surpassed the 1,000 dig club last Friday to become just he 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.
 
Schlaak joined teammate Riley Hanson in reaching 1,000 kills, who reached that plateau last season, as the two current players to reach that mark. Since then, Hanson has pushed her career total to 1,428 kills to move into seventh in program history.
 
The Golden Bears could see another member of the squad reach the mark this season as Emma Lange enters the weekend with 968 kills in her career, sitting 32 kills shy of the mark.
 
Senior libero Emily McDonough surpassed the mark of 1,000 digs on Oct. 15 against Sioux Falls as she became the 14th player in Concordia history to join the club.

Senior Kasey Williams also sits in range of 1,000 as she has picked up 941 digs in her career to go along with 4,378 assists. In addition to nearing 1,000 digs, she became the fourth player at Concordia to reach 4,000 assists as well.