PENSACOLA, Fla. – The top-seeded #3 Concordia Golden Bears volleyball team (32-3) advances to the NCAA National Semifinals with a sweep of eighth-seeded New Haven (26-7) on Thursday night. CSP will face fifth-seeded Rockhurst (32-7) tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m. with the winner earning a spot in Saturday night's title match.
 
The Golden Bears made it 10 wins in a row in the NCAA Tournament as they improved their all-time record to 65-6 in 71 tourney matches. Concordia will be making their 10^th appearance in the national semifinals as the win moves CSP to 10-1 in national quarterfinal matches. In their nine previous trips to the semis, the Golden Bears have gone a perfect 9-0 to garner a place in the championship match each season. Concordia's success in the title match has been well documented as the Golden Bears have won a record eight NCAA Division II Championships, all of which coming since the 2007 season.
 
In Friday night's match with Rockhurst, Concordia will face another unfamiliar foe as the Golden Bears and Hawks have met just one previous time, resulting in a Rockhurst three-set win all the way back in 1995.




The Golden Bears took care of business in nearly every aspect of the match as they hit .437 with 45 kills for the match while holding the Chargers to .084 with just 20 kills. Perhaps the biggest story came in the serve as the Golden Bears put New Haven on their heels with 11 aces while constantly pushing them out of system with their aggressive serving. UNH, meanwhile, did not collect a single ace.
 
It was a memorable night for senior Mariya Sampson as she surpassed 1,000 kills in her career with her third kill of the night. She finished with 10 kills with no errors on 22 attempts to put up a .455 hitting percentage. Brooklyn Lewis joined her in double figures as she finished with a match-best 12 kills and a .476 hitting percentage.
 
CSP's two middle each tallied .600+ hitting percentages as Shelby Seurer had eight kills on 12 swings and Sydney Book added six kill on 10 swings.
 
Hope Schiller did a little bit of everything for the Golden Bears as she compiled a full stat line with nine kills, six digs, four aces and two blocks. Elizabeth Mohr matched Schiller's four aces with four of her own while also dishing out 37 assists on the night. Tori Hanson did the heavy lifting in the back with a match-best 14 digs while chipping in two more aces.
 
In what was a difficult night for the Chargers, Kristine Rios tallied six kills to tie for the team high while leading the squad with 11 digs to go along with seven assists. Alex Bussey added six kills as well.
 
It was the Chargers that dealt the first blow as they scored the first three points of the match to build an early lead, but the Golden Bears turned it on from there. Down 4-1, CSP rattled off six points in a row to take a 7-4 lead. A few points later, Concordia put together another run, this time a 4-0 run to push their lead to 12-6. New Haven closed the gap to four with two straight and remained within that margin at 15-11 before CSP put it out of reach with another four point burst. The Golden Bears continued to pour it on as they took the opening set 25-14.
 
Concordia carried that momentum into the second set as they quickly built an advantage with five of the first six points. CSP continued add to their edge throughout the set as it reached six at 9-3 before growing all the way to 11 at 17-6 following a 7-0 stretch.  The Golden Bear lead would not shrink below nine the rest of the set as CSP rolled to a 2-0 lead in the match with a 25-11 set win in the second.
 
The Golden Bears got off to another quick start in the third with a 6-1 run to open play before continuing to tack on to their lead throughout. The advantage reached double figures at 14-4 as the lead sat at nine or higher for the duration of the set. With the lead at nine at 15-6, Concordia grabbed six in a row to push the lead all the way out to 15 at 21-7 before the team went on to wrap up the sweep by taking the set 25-7.