ST. PAUL, Minn. – Propelled by a 34-kill effort from junior
Makenna Nold, the No. 7 Concordia-St. Paul volleyball team (18-5, 13-2 NSIC) escaped with a tight four-set win over the University of Jamestown (15-8, 8-7 NSIC) on Saturday evening at the Gangelhoff Center.
Nold's 34 kills tied the single-match record at CSP and in the NSIC as a whole, joining Emily Palkert (2007, five sets) and Anna Schlaak (2015, four sets) atop Concordia's all-time list. Across the Northern Sun, Maddey Guetter (Augustana, 2021) and Kenzie Foley (St. Cloud State, 2024) are the only other players to accomplish the feat.
Nold took 71 swings in the match, the fifth-most in school history, and had just four errors, hitting .423. The junior also led the team with 15 digs in the win and added two block assists and an ace, good for the second-most points in program history with 36.
Senior
Julia Gordon logged her highest kill output as a Golden Bear and tied her career high with 16 kills in the match, while fellow senior
Mehlayna Straub joined her in double figures with 10 kills on .421 hitting and contributed three total blocks.
Setter
Audrey Waterman set the pace for Concordia's efficient offensive performance, logging 32 assists and adding seven digs.
Reagan Hickey finished with 23 assists and added eight digs for the Bears.
Defensively, sophomores
Kaelyn Snoozy and
Marta Leeland tallied 12 digs each for Concordia's back row.
The Golden Bears hit .312 with 72 kills as a team, while Jamestown tallied 55 kills and hit .244. Concordia also had a significant edge in both assists (67-52) and digs (81-69).
Concordia trailed big in the opening set as a five-point run by the Jimmies put them up 17-9. The Golden Bears battled back with a 14-7 run of their own and managed to pull within a single point at 24-23, but the Jimmies finished it off with a kill to take the set 25-23.
In the second frame, the Golden Bears jumped out to a 10-4 lead and maintained an advantage for the remainder of the set, eventually claiming a 25-21 win to even the match at one set apiece.
Set three quickly turned into a roller coaster, as it contained 11 ties and six lead changes. Concordia held the upper hand with a 22-20 advantage late in the frame, but the Jimmies logged back-to-back kills to knot it up at 22 each. A pair of kills from Nold followed to give CSP set point at 24-22, but Jamestown once again proved it would not go down without a fight as it claimed two straight kills of its own to tie it up at 24. Nold and the Bears would not be denied in the end, touching down with two straight kills to give CSP a 26-24 win and a 2-1 lead in the match.
The Golden Bears were on the back foot late in set four as they faced a 20-16 deficit. Concordia methodically chipped away at the Jamestown advantage the rest of the way, fighting off a pair of Jamestown set point opportunities to tie it up at 25 each before a kill from Gordon and an ace by Nold secured a 27-25 win.
The Golden Bears will now hit the road for three matches next week, as they are set to play at Minnesota State on Tuesday, then meet Sioux Falls (S.D.) on Friday and No. 10 Southwest Minnesota State on Saturday.
