ST. PAUL, Minn. – The top-ranked Concordia-St. Paul volleyball team (4-0) finished off a perfect weekend at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Woodbury Volleyball Clash with a sweep of #17 Northern State (2-1) on Saturday afternoon at the Gangelhoff Center.
After delivering in the first three matches, the Golden Bear offense took another step forward against NSU as they hit .554, committing just three errors with 49 kills on 83 attempts in the win. The .554 matched the second best mark in program history, matching their mark against U-Mary back on Oct. 24, 2009. The only more efficient effort came back on Sept. 21, 2002 at MSU Moorhead as they hit .587.
The defense also contributed their best performance on the young season as they held NSU to .114 hitting with only 23 kills in the match. CSP also carried an 8-3 advantage in service aces.
Leading the way in the attack was
Riley Hanson,
Sara Macek and
Anna Schlaak as all three finished with at least 10 kills. Hanson put up a match-best 11 kills to go along with three blocks and an ace while
Anna Schlaak contributed 10 kills, six digs and a match-high four aces. Macek was nearly perfect on the day as she finished with 10 kills on only 12 swings to put up a .833 hitting percentage. That mark would have tied for second in school history if it hit the 15-attempt threshold.
Kasey Williams continued to be a steadying force as the CSP setter as she put up 40 assists and five digs while
Emily McDonough hit double-digit digs for the fourth match in a row with 12.
On what was a tough day for the Wolves, Holly Vancura led the team with six kills and seven digs while Ashley Rozell added 19 assists.
Concordia wasted little time to take control in the first set as a 7-0 run turned a 6-4 lead into a 13-4 lead and put it out of reach early. The lead continued to grow from there as it reached 13 on several different occasions before CSP finished off a 25-13 set win.
After an early 1-1 tie in the second set, the Golden Bears led from wire-to-wire as they slowly padded their lead throughout. Concordia built a decisive advantage near the midway point as they stretched their lead to nine at 16-7 with a 6-0 run, causing NSU to burn both of their timeouts in the span of a few points. The lead would not shrink below eight the rest of the way as CSP went up 2-0 by winning the second set 25-14.
The Wolves took their largest lead of the entire match with two points to begin the third, but the lead was short-lived as the Golden Bears took four of the next five to grab the lead for good. The lead steadily grew from there, as it did in the first two sets, with Concordia pushing the lead to as many as 13 at the final margin of 25-12.
Concordia returns to action next weekend as they head west to Denver for the Colorado Premier Challenge. They are set to take on St. Leo and Lewis on Friday before playing two more matches on Saturday.
