SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – The third-seeded #8 Concordia-St. Paul volleyball team (25-7) claimed their sixth NSIC Tournament Championship with a sweep (25-17, 25-23, 25-21) of fourth-seeded #7 St. Cloud State (25-6) on Sunday afternoon at Sanford Pentagon.
The Golden Bears moved to 26-6 in NSIC Tournament play as they secured an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament for the sixth time in 12 trips. The 2019 squad joined the 2004, 2005, 2006, 2015 and 2016 teams as tourney champions.
Concordia will now wait to see their opening round opponent in the NCAA Tournament in Monday night's NCAA Selection Show. The show will be streamed on NCAA.com at 6:30 p.m. CT tomorrow evening.
After two straight days of nail-biting action that went down to the wire both days, the Golden Bears put together a complete performance in the finale as they controlled play for much of Sunday afternoon. Concordia was consistent across all three sets offensively as they collected at least 14 kills and hit .288 or better in each to finish the day at .328 with 51 kills. The defense, on the other hand, limited the Huskies to just .165 hitting for the match with 36 kills. CSP also tallied a 8.0-4.0 edge in blocks as well as a 5-3 edge in aces in the win.
Concordia's three NSIC All-Tournament Team selections were the top producers on the day as
Jasmine Mulvihill,
Tori Hanson and
Erin Fallert played a big role in the victory.
Mulvihill led the Golden Bears in kills in each of the three matches as she tallied 14 kills, seven digs, three blocks and a pair of aces in the win. She finished the tournament with an impressive 4.31 kills per set (56 total kills) to go along with 1.92 digs, 0.77 aces and 0.62 blocks per set.
Hanson paced all players with 17 digs in the match as she finished the weekend with a team-best 63 digs for an average of 4.85 per set.
Fallert registered her second double-double in three matches as she collected 10 kills and 14 digs to give her an average of 2.62 kills per set and 2.92 digs per set in the tournament.
Concordia's two middles,
Sara Macek and
Kennedy Brady, put up equally dominant efforts in the title match as both collected eight kills on just 11 swings for a massive .727 hitting percentage while also tacking on four blocks apiece. Brady also chipped in two aces.
SCSU's Linsey Rachel secured her NSIC All-Tournament Team spot with 14 kills and six digs in the loss while Phebie Rossi added six kills to also earn a spot on the team. UIU's Anna Winter rounded out the six-player All-Tournament squad.
The Golden Bears came out swinging to start the match as they grabbed five of the first six points before extending the lead to five at 8-3. Concordia remained in full control throughout the set as they added to their lead with a 7-1 several points later to make it 16-7. The Huskies managed to trim their deficit to six at 18-12 with a 5-2 run, but that would be all the closer they would get as CSP pushed it back to nine at 22-13 before taking the set 25-17.
The Huskies slowed the momentum a bit with five of the first seven points in the second set, but Concordia was quickly back in front at 6-5 following a 4-0 run of their own. Play went back and forth from there with a total of seven ties and four lead changes in the first 20 points before a 3-0 run gave SCSU a 13-10 edge. The Golden Bears closed the gap back to one at 13-12 and again at 14-13, but a St. Cloud State 6-1 run pushed it to 19-14 and nearly put it out of reach. That proved not to be the case, however, as CSP came storming back with a timely 9-1 run to regain the lead at 23-20. SCSU would not go away as they evened the score back up with the next three points, but the Golden Bears finished it off with two straight to take a 2-0 lead in the match with a 25-23 set win.
An early 5-1 run put the Golden Bears in front again in the third as they turned a 3-3 tie into an 8-4 lead. Concordia slowly added to the their edge throughout the middle stages of the set as it reached six at 15-9 before remained in that vicinity pretty much the rest of the way. The lead was still six at the 24-18 mark before the Huskies erased three straight match points, but they were unable to survive a four as the Golden Bears secured the sweep with a 25-21 set win.
