ST. PAUL, Minn. - The top-ranked Concordia-St. Paul volleyball team (22-2, 15-1 NSIC) returns to Gangelhoff Center for their final home weekend of the regular season as they host #7 Northern State (21-3, 14-2 NSIC) on Friday and MSU Moorhead (9-15, 4-12 NSIC) for Senior Day on Saturday.

SENIOR DAY
Prior to Saturday's match with the Dragons, Concordia will honor their three seniors in a pre-match ceremony as Mariya Sampson, Shelby Seurer and Taylor Schile will all be playing their final regular season match at Gangelhoff Center.

CHAMPIONSHIP ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
2017 marks the 10-year anniversary of Concordia's first ever NCAA Division II National Championship as the Golden Bears claimed their first of a record seven consecutive national titles in the 2007 season. The athletic department would like to invite all former CSP volleyball players and their families for a dessert reception in the Hall of Fame Room from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday during the match with MSU Moorhead. In addition, the 2007 squad will be recognized on the court during the match.

NORTHERN STATE SERIES HISTORY
Heading into Friday, Concordia holds a record of 32-8 in 40 previous meetings with the Wolves. Northern State snapped CSP's 27 game winning streak spanning 12 seasons in the series back in 2015 as the Wolves knocked off the Golden Bears in four sets in Aberdeen. Since then. the Golden Bears have won the past three meetings. In 23 total meetings in St. Paul, the Golden Bears have won all 20 meetings since 2001.

LAST MEETING VS NSU
In the first meeting this season on Sept. 30, the Golden Bears rolled to an impressive road sweep at then-#14 Northern State.

Heading into the night with one of the most efficient offenses in the NSIC with a team hitting percentage of .323, the Wolves were stifled by CSP's defense as they were limited to just a .105 hitting percentage on the night. The Golden Bears held NSU to 29 kills while forcing 18 hitting errors on 105 swings in the match. Impressively, Concordia did not allow a hitting percentage higher than .182 in any of the three sets in the win. On the offensive side of things, Concordia collected 46 kills with 12 errors on 119 attempts to finish with a .286 hitting percentage. CSP also held a 5-1 edge in service aces, a 6.0-4.0 edge in total blocks and a 53-50 edge in digs on the night.

Brooklyn Lewis matched her career-best in kills for the second time in as many nights to that point as she once again put up 19 kills in the win. Lewis was even more efficient with her swings as she compiled a match-best .405 hitting percentage to go along with three digs and a pair of blocks. For the weekend, the junior tallied a staggering 5.43 kills with a .361 hitting percentage. With Lewis doing much of the heavy lifting, no other Golden Bears finished in double figures as Sydney Book and Hope Schiller each chipped in eight kills, Mariya Sampson added six and Shelby Seurer had five. Schiller filled the stat sheet elsewhere with 11 digs, two blocks and an ace while Seurer was dominant at the net with six blocks.

MSU MOORHEAD SERIES HISTORY
The Golden Bears and Dragons have met 36 times prior to Saturday's meeting, with Concordia holding a 28-8 edge over MSUM in those contests. Since 2001, CSP has dominated the seried by winning 28 of the last 29 meetings. MSUM's last win against CSP came back on Nov. 9, 2007 in a four-set win in St. Paul. Since then, Concordia has dropped just three sets in 13 meetings. The Golden Bears have claimed 14 wins in the 17 meetings on their home court in the series.

LAST MEETING VS MSUM
Back on Sept. 29, then-#2 Concordia-St. Paul grabbed a four-set road victory in Moorhead over the Dragons.

It was a career night for Brooklyn Lewis as she paced all players with 19 kills with an efficient .326 hitting percentage. Lewis committed just four errors on her 46 swings as she matched the most kills for a CSP hitter this season to that point.

Mariya Sampson followed Lewis with 16 kills while Hope Schiller and Sydney Book also reached double figures with 13 and 11 kills, respectively. Schiller also chipped in a team-best 19 digs and four blocks to pick up her fifth double-double while Book reached double figures in kills for the first time in her career.

Schiller was one of five Golden Bears to hit double digits in digs as Erin Fallert, Taylor Soine, Tori Hanson and Elizabeth Mohr also reached that mark. Fallert grabbed 15 while Soine had 12 and Hanson had 10. In addition, Mohr picked up 10 digs as well to go along with 58 assists for the double-double.

LAST TIME OUT
Concordia grabbed a pair of wins over ranked opponents over the weekend, giving them six on the year, while hitting an impressive .367 on the weekend while holding their opponents to .176.

The Golden Bears served tough in the two wins as they tallied 13 aces in Friday's win over WSC before adding eight more against Augie to bring the total to 3.00 per set on the weekend. Four different hitters registered in with at least 3.29 kills per set as Concordia finished the two matches with 116 kills (16.57 per set).

Elizabeth Mohr and Shelby Seurer both received NSIC honors for their efforts as Mohr was named NSIC Setter of the Week and Seurer was named NSIC Offensive Player of the Week. Mohr averaged 14.00 assists per set while Seurer hit .639 with 3.43 kills per set.

IN THE POLLS
After sitting in the top spot in the first two AVCA Polls, CSP returned to the top spot this week after knocking off SMSU on Saturday. 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 spent an incredible 78 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.
 
NSIC LEADERS
Heading into the week, Concordia has gotten production from throughout their lineup with six different players that rank near the top of the NSIC in six different statistical categories so far this year.
 
Setter Elizabeth Mohr leads the way in that regard as she leads the nation in assists per set while also ranking third in total assists as she amassed an average of 13.36 assists per set while tallying 1122 assists overall heading into the week.
 
The Golden Bears' Sara Macek ranks fourth in the league with a .401 hitting percentage while Shelby Seurer follows close behind in eighth at .342. Yet another CSP middle has put together an efficient season as Sydney Book's .421 hitting percentage in NSIC play leads the league by a full .020. While Macek, Seurer and Book have led the way in hitting percentage, Brooklyn Lewis has been the go-to hitter for the Golden Bears as her 3.88 kills per set rank sixth in the league while her 4.11 points per set rank seventh as well. Lewis has been even better in conference play as her 4.26 kills per set in league contests rank second in the NSIC.
 
Freshmen Tori Hanson and Erin Fallert round out the group as Hanson ranks seventh in the league with 0.36 aces and eighth with 4.38 digs per set while Fallert ranks eighth with 0.36 aces per set.