Volleyball | 11.2.16

ST. PAUL, Minn. - The top-ranked Concordia Golden Bears volleyball team (22-2, 14-2 NSIC) is set for a massive late-season road trip as they travel to #2 Minnesota Duluth (22-2, 14-2 NSIC) on Friday beforing taking on St. Cloud State (8-17, 3-13 NSIC) on Saturday.

THE MATCHUPS
In Friday's matchup between the top two teams in the country, the Golden Bears will look to bounce back from their dramatic five-set loss against the Bulldogs back on Sept. 30. CSP enters the weekend with a record of 22-26 in the all-time series with UMD, including a record of 9-12 in Duluth. Concordia has had much more success recently in the series as they have claimed 17 wins in the last 24 meetings. Last season, CSP claimed a season sweep as they won both meetings in the regular season before picking up a third win the NSIC Tournament. The meeting is the fourth meeting between the two schools in which they have ranked #1 and #2, with the Golden Bears winning the meetings in 2010 and 2013 before Minnesota Duluth took the meeting earlier this year.

In the meeting back on Sept. 30, the Bulldogs survived a late rush from the Golden Bears to hold on for the five-set victory. The loss snapped the Golden Bears' third longest winning streak to start a season as they had won their first 13 matches. While the Golden Bears dominated statistically in nearly every category, an opportunistic UMD took advantage of their chances to gain the edge. CSP hit .252 compared to .120 for UMD while also holding advantages of 14.0-6.0 in blocks, 5-4 in service aces, 61-51 in kills and 56-47 in assists. The Bulldogs benefitted with a 62-59 edge in digs while committing less service errors with a difference of 13-7. The duo of Emma Lange and Anna Schlaak did a lot of the heavy lifting offensively as Lange had 16 kills and Schlaak added 15 on a combined 75 swings.

Against the Huskies, Concordia has been nearly perfect as they have gone 23-1 in 24 previous meetings. After St. Cloud State took the first meeting back in 1975, CSP has racked up 23 wins in a row with 20 sweeps during that span. The Golden Bears have held SCSU to just one set win since 2007 while they have also won 10 straight meetings in St. Cloud with eight sweeps.

Back on Oct. 1 in St. Paul, Concordia bounced back from their first loss of the season with a comfortable three-set win over the Huskies. CSP cruised throughout as they hit an impressive .418 while holding SCSU to just .086 on the night. The Golden Bears also dominated at the net as they collected 8.0 blocks with just 1.0 for St. Cloud State while committing less hitting errors with nine compared to 17 for the Huskies. Anna Schlaak shined with a team-best 16 kills with a solid .406 hitting percentage while also finishing second on the team with eight digs. Riley Hanson added another efficient effort as she put up 11 kills on just 17 swings for a mark of .529. Rounding out highlights offensively, Emma Lange finished with eight kills with just one error to hit .467 in the win.

LAST TIME OUT
Last weekend, CSP swept MSU Moorhead on Friday before grabbing a hard-fought five-set win over then-#13 Northern State on Saturday.

In what was a crazy night statistically on Saturday, the team finished with a tie for the eighth-most kills in program history with 84 kills as the team took 183 swings to finish with a hitting percentage of .328 on the night. The Wolves weren't far behind with 68 kills on 169 attempts and a .296 hitting percentage. CSP also held a 74-70 edge in digs, 8.0-7.0 edge in blocks as well as a 78-62 edge in assists. The match featured a whopping 41 ties and 16 lead changes on the night.

Kasey Williams' 72 assists shattered her previous career best of 66 set back in 2014 as her mark tied for sixth-most in program history and was five shy of the program history. She also added seven digs. Emily McDonough surpassed her career high of 22 digs by an incredible nine digs as her 31 digs led all players in the match by 14. Her 31 digs was the most in program history since 2011 and tied for the fifth-most in a five-set match at CSP.

PLAYOFF PUSH
With two weekends remaining in the NSIC conference season, the Golden Bears sit in a three-way tie at the top of the league along with Minnesota Duluth and Southwest Minnesota State. After this weekend's games, CSP will close out the regular season at home with matches against Minnesota Crookston and Bemidji State as they control their own destiny in their quest for their 13th NSIC regular season title under Brady Starkey. After facing CSP, UMD will host Minnesota State on Saturday before travelling to Upper Iowa and Winona State next weekend while SMSU has road games with Northern State and MSU Moorhead and home games with U-Mary and Minot State. Also in the mix, Winona State and Augustana are just a game back at 13-3 in league play.

IN THE POLLS
After spending the first five weeks in the top spot in the AVCA Poll, CSP returned to the top spot this week 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 71 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 sits in the top spot in hitting percentage with an efficient mark of .433 as she leads all players by a full .012 percentage points. Kasey Williams ranks second in assists per set at 12.19, trailing only SMSU's Megan Larson in the category.
 
The Golden Bears as a team lead the nation with a .326 hitting percentage while also ranking third with 14.07 assists per set and second with 14.85 kills per set.

REACHING 1,000
In the past month, 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.
 
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.
 
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 1,377 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 917 kills in her career, sitting 83 kills shy of the mark.
 
On the defensive side, senior libero Emily McDonough surpassed the mark of 1,000 digs three weekends ago 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 973 digs, just 27 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 907 digs in her career to go along with 4,180 assists. In addition to nearing 1,000 digs, she became the fourth player at Concordia to reach 4,000 assists as well.