ST. PAUL, Minn. – The third-ranked Concordia-St. Paul volleyball team (13-2, 6-1 NSIC) extended their streak to 16 consecutive sets won as they swept (25-17, 25-17, 25-11) the University of Mary (2-13, 1-6 NSIC) on Friday night at Gangelhoff Center.
 
The Golden Bears remained unbeaten in 23 meetings with the Marauders as they picked up their 20^th sweep in the all-time series as they opened homecoming weekend with a win.
 
Concordia's offense was firing on all cylinders as they hit .453 on the night with 47 kills and just eight errors on 86 attempts on the night. The .453 mark was the best for the team since they hit .600 against Minot State all the way back on Oct. 6, 2018 in St. Paul. CSP also held UMary to below .150 all three sets as they finished with 23 kills and an .065 hitting percentage in the loss.
 
In addition to the offensive dominance, CSP also held a 50-28 edge in digs as well as an 8.0-2.0 edge in blocks in the win.
 
The Golden Bears utilized 16 different players in the victory as 14 different players registered digs, nine different players registered kills and eight different players registered blocks in the win.
 
Jasmine Mulvihill tallied a team-best 14 kills with no errors on 20 attempts for a .700 hitting percentage to go along with three blocks in two sets of action. Emma Schmidt nearly collected a double-double with 10 digs, eight kills and a .615 hitting percentage in two sets of play while Ellie Sieling had 10 digs and five kills with .500 mark in her two sets.
 
Katie Mattson added six kills, two blocks and a .556 hitting percentage while Makenna Berger collected six kills, four digs and a team-best three aces on the night. Teagan Starkey put up 26 assists and six digs in two sets while Halle Bemmels had 12 assists and three digs in the third.
 
Kaia Sueker led the Marauders with a match-best 15 digs to go along with two aces and two assists in the loss.
 
Concordia set the tone early with eight of the first 11 points of the match before the Marauders battled back to tie it up at 10-10. The momentum quickly shifted back in CSP's favor as they scored the next six points and nine of the next 10 to build a comfortable advantage at 19-11. That lead grew to as many as nine a few points later at 21-12 before they closed out the set with a 25-17 win.
 
The two teams jostled for the lead in the opening stages of the second set with six ties by the 13-13 mark, but the Golden Bears once again took control with a 6-0 run to take the lead for good. The lead would not shrink below five the rest of the way as they went on to win the set by a score of 25-17.
 
CSP led from start to finish in the third set as they opened on an 8-3 run before slowly growing the lead from there. With the margin at just three at 10-7, the Golden Bears rattled off eight of the next nine points to push the lead into double figures at 18-8. Concordia eventually finished off the sweep with a 25-11 set win in the third.
 
The Golden Bears will look to make it seven wins in a row tomorrow evening as they host Minot State at 5 p.m. for CSP Homecoming.