ST. PAUL, Minn. - The fifth-ranked Concordia-St. Paul volleyball team (13-4, 7-2 NSIC) remains on the road this weekend as they make the trip to North Dakota to take on Minot State (1-17, 0-9 NSIC) on Friday and UMary (1-17, 0-9 NSIC) on Saturday.

MINOT STATE SERIES HISTORY
Friday marks the 10th meeting in the all-time series with Minot State as the Golden Bears have won the first nine meetings. All nine previous meetings have come since Minot State joined the NSIC with CSP claiming sweeps in eight of the nine. The Beavers claimed their only set win in the series in a match in Minot back on Oct. 25, 2013.

LAST MEETING VS MINOT
In last year's meeting on Oct. 6, CSP put together a historic offensive performance on homecoming as CSP set the program record with a .600 hitting percentage in a sweep of Minot State.

Incredibly, Concordia committed just three errors while hammering out 51 kills on 80 attempts to finish with a record-setting mark of .600. The mark surpassed the previous school best of .591 set back on Nov. 12, 2016 against the Beavers of Bemidji State. It was a real group effort with all four hitters with at least 12 swings hitting .500 or better on the night.
 
CSP's defense held Minot State to .171 for the match while also picking up a 36-26 edge in digs as well as a 5.0-1.0 edge in blocks.
 
Sara Macek led the way with a historic effort of her own as she put up the seventh best individual hitting percentage in a match at CSP at .762 as she collected 16 kills with no errors on 21 attempts. Her 16 kills without an error was one shy of the team record for most kills without an error.
 
Hope Schiller added an even .500 hitting percentage with an impressive performance of her own as she put up 14 kills with two errors on 24 swings to go along with seven digs and a pair of aces. Sydney Book and Brooklyn Lewis each chipped in hitting percentages over .600 with nine kills as Book hit .667 and Lewis his .643.
 
Elizabeth Mohr guided the attack with 39 assists with three digs while Tori Hanson collected over a third of the team's digs with 14 digs.

UMARY SERIES HISTORY
Heading into Saturday, the Golden Bears have gone a perfect 19-0 in the all-time series against the Marauders. Concordia has dominated the series as they have swept 17 of the 19 meetings overall. Prior to a four-setter in St. Paul in 2017, the only meeting that didn't end in a sweep was a five-set win for CSP in Bismarck on Sept. 28, 2007.

LAST MEETING VS UMARY
In last year's meeting on Oct. 5, Concordia kicked off homecoming weekend with a sweep of the University of Mary at Gangelhoff Center.

It was a bit of a quiet night offensively on both sides of the net as the two teams combined for 70 kills on the night. Concordia's defense was especially stifling as they limited Mary to .086 while hitting .255 themselves. Concordia also held a 44-35 edge in digs and a 9.0-7.0 edge in blocks as well.
 
Sara Macek once again led the offense as she tallied a match-best 13 kills on just 23 swings to finish with a .435 hitting percentage. She also led the team with five blocks while also tallying an ace.
 
Brooklyn Lewis also hit double digits with 10 kills while Sydney Book and Hope Schiller each chipped in seven kills and Kennedy Brady added a career-best six kills.
 
Tori Hanson was the lone Golden Bear to reach double figures in digs as she registered 13 while Taylor Soine put up eight and Schiller had seven. Elizabeth Mohr also had seven digs to go along with 39 assists and a pair of blocks.

LAST TIME OUT
On Tuesday night, the Golden Bears saw their five-match winning streak come to a close as they dropped the final three sets in a four-set loss at 20th-ranked Winona State.

After coming out with a massive 17 kills and a .424 hitting percentage in their first-set win, CSP was held below .150 in each of the final three sets of the night to finish at .148 (48-27-142). The WSU offense perhaps even more impressive than their defense as they hit over .350 in three of four sets to put up a mark of .317 (61-17-139) in the match. The Wildcats also held a 58-51 edge in digs as well as a 55-47 edge in assists as well as an 8-6 edge in total blocks. CSP did manage a 9-4 advantage in service aces on the night.
 
Tori Hanson provided a bright spot for the Golden Bears with 20 of the team's 51 digs to go along with seven assists and three aces in a full stat line. Makenna Berger and Erin Fallert each chipped in eight digs while Payton Nutter put up seven to go along with 38 assists in the match. Fallert and Nutter each contributed a pair of aces as well. Sara Macek was the team's top offensive producer with 13 kills while Jasmine Mulvihill also reached double figures with 11 kills.

IN THE POLLS
After spending three weeks in a row at #7 in the polls, the Golden Bears moved up to #5 this week after two wins over ranked opponents on homecoming weekend. 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 they have ranked outside the top-5 just eight weeks since October 2012. The Golden Bears have spent an incredible 83 weeks at #1 since they debuted there in the 2004 preseason poll. Since the 2007 season, CSP has ranked #1 at least once every season heading into this year.

CLIMBING THE RANKS
After reaching the 1,000 career dig mark late in her sophomore season, junior libero Tori Hanson has started to move her way up in the career record book at Concordia. Hanson currently ranks eighth in DII-era history at CSP with 1,375 digs, sitting 49 shy of Kayla Koenecke in eighth. She isn't the only Golden Bear piling up career statistics as Erin Fallert sits 79 digs shy of 1,000 with 921 and Sara Macek sits 151 kills shy of 1,000 with 849.