ST. PAUL, Minn. - The #2 Concordia-St. Paul volleyball team (12-1, 5-0 NSIC) hits the road for a four-game road trip starting this weekend with a trip to MSU Moorhead (7-6, 203 NSIC) on Friday night and #14 Northern State (12-1, 5-0 NSIC) on Saturday night in a pair of NSIC contests.

MSU MOORHEAD SERIES HISTORY
The Golden Bears meet the Dragons for the 36th time in series history on Friday as Concordia holds a 27-8 record in the previous 35 meetings. Since 2001, CSP has dominated the seried by winning 27 of the last 28 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 two sets in 12 meetings. The two schools have met in Moorhead 15 previous times with Concordia holding a record of 12-3 in those 15 matches.

LAST MEETING VS MSUM
Back on Oct. 28, 2016, CSP rolled past MSU Moorhead in straight sets in St. Paul as the Golden Bears extended their streak to five sweeps in a row.

The Golden Bears played relatively mistake-free volleyball as they finished with 52 kills on 112 swings with 12 hitting errors to go along with a long service error and no blocking errors. CSP finished the night hitting .357, aided by a .548 mark in the third, while they held MSUM to .163.

On a night in which CSP rotated at the setter position, Kasey Williams and Elizabeth Mohr combined for 47 assists, 11 digs and five service aces in what was an impressive performance. Williams was especially impressive in the stat sheet as she finished just a dig shy of a double-double with 33 assists, nine digs and three aces. The duo of Emma Lange and Riley Hanson proved to be too much at the net for MSU Moorhead as they each finished with a match-best 13 kills as well as two blocks in the win. Lange hit an efficient .480 with four digs and a pair of assists as Hanson was nearly as efficient at .455 as she chipped in two digs.

NORTHERN STATE SERIES HISTORY
Against the Wolves, Concordia holds a record of 31-8 in the all-time series heading into Saturday's contest. 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. Overall, Concordia has claimed 10 wins in 15 total meetings on the road against NSU.

LAST MEETING VS NSU
In last season's meeting on Oct. 29 at Gangelhoff Center, Concordia survived for a dramatic five-set victory over #13 Northern State as they claimed the final two sets to pull out the victory.

In what was a crazy night statistically, 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.

It was a career night for several CSP players as Kasey Williams set a career high in assists, Emily McDonough set a career high in digs, and Sara Macek and Mariya Sampson set career highs in kills. 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. 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. Mariya Sampson also set a new career best with 20 kills to lead all players as Sara Macek chipped in a career-best 16 with a .636 hitting percentage. Riley Hanson and Anna Schlaak chipped in massive kill totals with 18 apiece as Schlaak also added 17 digs to give her nine double-doubles on the season.

LAST TIME OUT
Last week, CSP moved to 5-0 in NSIC play for the 12th time in 15 years under Brady Starkey after picking up three wins on their home court.

The Golden Bears held Minnesota State, Minot State and U-Mary to a combined .154 hitting percentage while hitting.260 en route to a 147-111 edge in kills in the three wins. Concordia picked up a big edge in serving as they finished with 25 service aces and 16 service errors while their opponents had 16 aces and 21 errors on the week.

Brooklyn Lewis led the team with 38 kills (3.45 per set) while hitting an efficient .412 for the week as she led the team in kills in two of the three matches while Hope Schiller paced the squad with 44 digs (4.00 per set) to go along with 33 kills (3.00 per set) as she picked up double-doubles against both MSU and U-Mary.

IN THE POLLS
After sitting in the top spot in the first two AVCA Polls, CSP has ranked #2 over the past three weeks after falling to now-#1 SMSU in the Colorado Premier Challenge title match. 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 77 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 this weekend, Concordia has gotten production from throughout their lineup with three different players that rank near the top of the NSIC in different statistical categories so far this year.

Setter Elizabeth Mohr leads the way in that regard as she ranks second the nation and first in the NSIC in assists per set while ranking third and first, respectively, in total assists as she amassed an average of 13.18 assists per set while tallying 659 assists overall heading into the week.
 
The Golden Bears' two starting middles have been extremely efficient with Sara Macek's .401 hitting percentage ranking fifth in the NSIC while Shelby Seurer's mark of .301 ranks just outside of the top-10.

Tori Hanson rounds out the group as she ranks eighth in the league with 4.26 digs per set.