ST. PAUL, Minn. – The #5 Concordia-St. Paul volleyball team (9-2, 2-1 NSIC) swept (25-21, 28-26, 25-17) Sioux Falls (6-4, 2-1 NSIC) on Friday night in CSP's conference home opener at Gangelhoff Center.
The Golden Bears remained unbeaten on their home court on the season as they moved to 5-0 at Gangelhoff Center while they improved their all-time mark to 13-5 against USF, going 7-2 on their home court.
The CSP offense fell just shy of their season-best hitting percentage of .342 set back on Aug. 27 against OBU as they collected 51 kills with just 12 errors on 115 attempts to hit .339 on the night. Sioux Falls, on the other side, hit .267 with 43 kills in the match.
Concordia won the serving battle and the battle at the net as they finished with a 9-4 edge in aces while committing just three service errors compared to five for USF to go along with an 11.0-4.0 advantage in blocks in the win.
It was a career night for
Halle Bemmels as she contributed a career-high 47 assists (15.67 per set) while matching her career-bests with seven digs and two aces.
Jasmine Mulvihill led the way in the attack as she needed just 33 swings to collect 18 kills (6.00 per set) to finish with a .455 hitting percentage. She added eight digs and an ace in the win.
Emma Schmidt joined Mulvihill in double figures in kills with 13 on 28 swings for a .429 hitting percentage while she picked up eight digs of her own.
Ellie Sieling paced all players with 15 digs while
Katie Mattson had a match-best five blocks on the night.
Jordyn Hamm led USF with 11 kills and three aces while Brynn Askew collected 11 digs in the loss.
The Cougars came out firing to start the match as they scored the first four points before maintaining a lead into the middle stages of the set. With that lead at three at 12-9, CSP registered a 6-1 run to take their first lead of the match at 15-13. USF tied it back up with two straight points, but the Golden Bears responded with three in a row to take the lead for good as they went on to win the set 25-21.
Sioux Falls once again led in the early stages of set two as they jumped out to an 8-5 lead and held a lead at the same margin at 15-12 before Concordia turned the tide. CSP tied it up with three points in a row, setting up a stretch of five ties in a nine-point span as the two teams traded points. The Cougars took the lead back at 21-19 and forced set point at 24-22, but a crucial 3-0 run for the Golden Bears swung the momentum in favor of the hosts. USF survived a set point of their own and regained the lead at 26-25, but another 3-0 burst sealed a 28-26 set two win for Concordia.
USF opened with the first two points of the third set, but six of the next seven went in favor of the Golden Bears as they took control early. The Cougars were back within a point at 7-6, 8-7 and 9-8 before a timely 7-0 run for CSP put it out of reach. The lead would not shrink below five the rest of the way and grew to as many as nine as Concordia completed the sweep with a 25-17 win in the third.
CSP will look to make it six wins in a row at home tomorrow afternoon as they host #7 Southwest Minnesota State at 2 p.m.
