ST. PAUL, Minn. – The top-ranked Concordia-St. Paul volleyball team (24-2, 17-1 NSIC) claimed a share of the NSIC regular season crown with a sweep of MSU Moorhead (9-17, 4-14 NSIC) on Saturday afternoon at Gangelhoff Center.
 
The Golden Bears have now finished with at least a share of the conference title 14 times in 15 seasons under head coach Brady Starkey. CSP heads into next weekend needing to win only one of their final two matches to grab the title outright with three teams sitting two games behind in the standings. One win next weekend would also secure the top seed in the NSIC Volleyball Tournament and home court advantage throughout the tournament.
 
Concordia made it 29 wins in the last 30 meetings with the Dragons as they improved to 29-8 all-time against MSUM. CSP also extended their overall winning streak to nine as they moved to 10-0 on their home court in NSIC play.
 
It was an all-around dominant performance for the Golden Bears as they finished with a .388 hitting percentage with 51 kills while the Dragons were held to just .074 hitting with 22 kills in the match. CSP hit over .250 in all three sets, including a massive .500 mark in the third while MSU Moorhead was held to .152 or below in all three set. Concordia also managed to lead in digs (53-34), blocks (6.0-4.0) and service aces (5-3) in the match.
 
On Senior Day, Concordia's two senior hitters led the way offensively as Mariya Sampson paced all players with 14 kills on just 26 swings to hit .500 while Shelby Seurer added 11 kills with an even better .611 hitting percentage in the win. Taylor Schile, CSP's third senior, also saw some action and picked up a dig.
 
Joining Sampson and Seurer in the attack were Brooklyn Lewis and Sydney Book as Lewis put up 11 kills and Book added 10.
 
Hope Schiller was active in the back row as she reached 20+ digs for the second night in a row with a match-high 20 as she collected 37.7% of the team's 53 digs in the match. Erin Fallert also reached double figures with 12 to go along with a pair of aces.
 
Elizabeth Mohr finished with an impressive 15.00 assists per set in the match as she totaled 45 digs over the three sets. Mohr also chipped in four digs and two aces on the afternoon.
 
Lauren Kiewiet did a little bit of everything for the Dragons in the loss as she led the team with eight kills to go along with seven assists, six digs and an ace.
 
The Dragons pushed the Golden Bears throughout the opening set as the set featured 10 ties and five lead changes. After CSP jumped out to a 4-2 lead, the differential remained within one either way until a 3-0 burst gave MSUM a 13-10 edge. A few points later, Concordia rattled off a 4-0 run of their own to regain their lead at 15-14. The advantage grew to three at 19-16 and five at 23-18 before the Golden Bears settled with a 25-20 set win in the first.
 
After MSU Moorhead jumped ahead 4-1 in the second, the Golden Bears completely took control in the set. CSP got things started with five in a row to build a 9-6 advantage before rattling off five more in a row one point later to make it 14-7. After another point for MSUM, Concordia embarked on an even bigger 8-0 run to push the lead to 22-8 before going on to win the set 25-10.
 
The Golden Bears carried that momentum into the third set as they took four of the first five to take the lead for good. Their advantage hit six at 10-4 with another 5-0 run before they pushed it to double figures with a 6-0 run to make it 17-6. The Dragons cut it to single digits late, but were unable to pull any closer than nine as CSP finished off the sweep by winning the third set 25-13.
 
Concordia closes out the regular season next weekend on the road as they travel to U-Mary on Friday and Minot State on Saturday.