KEARNEY, Neb. – The fourth-seeded #9 Concordia-St. Paul volleyball team (24-8) advances to the NCAA Central Region Championship with a four-set win (19-25, 25-14, 25-14, 25-13) over eighth-seeded Harding (28-6) on Friday night on the campus of Nebraska-Kearney.
 
For the 15^th time in 16 seasons, the Golden Bears will play for the NCAA region title as they advance to face third-seeded #8 Washburn (31-4) on Saturday night at 6 p.m. CSP and WU have met four previous times with Concordia going 3-1 in those contests. The last meeting came in the 2014 NCAA Central Region quarterfinals with the Golden Bears picking up the sweep.
 
In addition to moving to 15-1 all-time in region semifinal matches, Concordia extended their tournament winning streak to 14 as they improved to 69-6 overall in their 16 trips to the NCAA Tournament. In their 14 previous trips to the region championship match, the Golden Bears have earned a trip to the NCAA Elite Eight 11 times with a victory.
 
While it was Concordia's two senior hitters that paced the squad on Thursday night, it was the freshman's turn on Friday as Kennedy Brady shattered her career high with 27 kills on the night, surpassing her previous best of 17. The middle blocker was dominant from start to finish as she hit an even .500 while also tacking on four blocks in the win. Her 27 kills were second-most in a four-set match in the DII-era at CSP.
 
Fellow middle blocker Sara Macek tallied 16 kills and four blocks while Brooklyn Lewis also reached double figures with 11 kills to go along with seven digs, three aces and three blocks on the night.
 
The Golden Bears had three reach double figures in digs in the match as Tori Hanson led all players with 19 while Erin Fallert had 12 and Hope Schiller had 10. Schiller added four aces while Hanson had two as well.
 
Elizabeth Mohr fell three digs shy of a double-double with 53 assists and seven digs as well as two aces as the team tallied an impressive 11 aces compared to just two service errors. CSP also held a massive 64-30 edge in kills and a 64-46 edge in digs on the night.
 
For the Lady Bisons, Zoe Hardin led an impressive block with six of the team's 10.0 total blocks to go along with a team-best nine kills in the loss. Katherine Cowart and Taylor Lake matched each other with a team-best nine digs as well.
 
The Golden Bears opened the match with the first three points, but saw the momentum quickly shift the other way as the Lady Bisons responded with 11 of the next 13 to build a six point advantage. Harding continued to add to their lead as it grew to as many as eight at 16-8 before CSP started to claw their way back in it. The HU lead was cut in half with a 4-0 run and shrunk even further at 18-16 following another 4-0 burst for CSP two points later, but that's all the closer they would get. With Concordia still within two at 19-17, they managed just two more points the rest of the set as the Lady Bisons finished on a 6-2 run to win it 25-19.
 
For the second set in a row Concordia scored the first three points for the set, but this time they continued to pour it on as they doubled that lead at the 9-3 mark. With the lead at five at 12-7, the Golden Bears expanded the lead all the way out to nine at 16-7 with four in a row before pushing it to double figures at 21-11. The lead remained 10 or more for the duration of the set as Concordia evened up the match at 1-1 with a dominant 25-14 set win the second.
 
It was much of the same early in the third set as CSP grabbed six of the first seven before quickly grabbing a double digit lead with 14 of the first 17 points. The Lady Bisons had back to single digits as late as 16-7, but a 6-2 run for the Golden Bears put it comfortably in their favor down the stretch. Concordia eventually finished off a 25-14 set win to take a 2-1 lead in the match heading to the fourth.
 
Concordia wasted little time to jump out front in the fourth as they opened on a 4-0 run to take the lead for good. Harding trimmed it to two at 6-4 before four straight points as a part of a 6-1 run extended the CSP advantage to seven at 12-5. After the Lady Bisons took the next two points, the Golden Bears put it out of reach with an 8-0 burst to grow their lead to 20-7. Concordia took care of business from there as they closed out the four-set win with a 25-13 set win.