ST. PAUL, Minn. – The No. 5 Concordia-St. Paul team (11-4, 6-2 NSIC) suffered its first home setback of the season on Friday evening, falling to No. 19 Minnesota Duluth (15-1, 8-0 NSIC) in five sets at the Gangelhoff Center.
Senior
Mehlayna Straub was outstanding for the Golden Bears, logging a season-high 17 kills with no errors on 28 swings for a match-high .607 hitting clip. Straub also led the defensive effort at the net with five total blocks.
Junior
Makenna Nold registered her eighth double-double of the season, finishing with 16 kills and 13 digs.
Julia Gordon and
Kelsey Cooper added 11 kills each for Concordia.
Defensively, sophomore
Kaelyn Snoozy led the way with 16 digs, while freshman
Abby Rolbiecki added 12.
At setter, time was split relatively even, with
Audrey Waterman tallying 27 assists and
Reagan Hickey finishing with 26.
Though the teams tallied 61 kills each on the evening, Concordia had an edge in efficiency with 16 errors on 175 swings for a .257 hitting percentage, while the Bulldogs had 31 errors on 172 attempts for a .174 hitting percentage. Minnesota Duluth made up for that with a 13-4 advantage in service aces.
The opening set was tight throughout, containing 15 ties and four lead changes. The Golden Bears rallied from a 24-20 deficit with a late three-point run to pull within one, but the Bulldogs managed to close it out with a 25-23 win.
Concordia found itself trailing 4-6 early in the second set but used a run of seven points in the next eight serves to take an 11-7 advantage in what would prove to be the final lead change of the frame. The Bulldogs cut the deficit to a single point four separate times late in the set, but a kill from Nold gave the Bears a 25-23 win to pull them even in the match.
Each team spent time with the lead early in the third set, but CSP managed to carve out a 19-17 lead late in the set. It was all Golden Bears from there as they closed out the set with a 6-1 run to secure a 25-18 win and a 2-1 lead in the match.
Set four was yet another back-and-forth affair containing 10 ties and six lead changes. Concordia found a late spark with a 3-0 run that cut a 22-18 deficit down to one at 22-21, but that proved to be as close as things would get with UMD claiming three of the next four points to take the set 25-22.
The final set played out similarly, as Concordia was forced to dig deep late in the set, facing a 12-8 deficit. Two kills by Straub, a kill from Nold, and an ace from Rolbiecki knotted things up at 12 each, but the Bulldogs responded with a 3-1 run of their own to close out the match with a 15-13 win.
The Golden Bears will wrap up their homestand when they host Bemidji State (13-3, 5-3 NSIC) on Saturday at 2 p.m.
