MANKATO, Minn. – The No. 9 Concordia-St. Paul volleyball team (19-5, 14-2 NSIC) kicked off its three-match road trip with a sweep of Minnesota State (10-14, 8-8 NSIC) at the Taylor Center on Tuesday evening.
Junior
Makenna Nold logged her 13th double-double of the season in the win, leading the offense with 13 kills and adding 11 digs. Fellow junior
Kelsey Cooper finished with nine kills, six digs, and three total blocks, while senior
Mehlayna Straub joined her with nine kills and four total blocks.
Junior
Audrey Waterman got a majority of the work at setter, tallying 25 assists and adding a pair of blocks and a pair of kills.
On defense, sophomore
Marta Leeland paved the way with a match-high 17 digs while also contributing three aces. Freshman
Abby Rolbiecki neared double figures with nine digs for CSP.
As a team, Concordia hit .248 with 41 kills while MSU finished with 33 kills on .158 hitting. The Golden Bears also used a 9-3 advantage in aces and a 7-3 edge in blocks to help secure the sweep.
Early in the first set, the Golden Bears clung to a 9-8 lead before winning six straight points to open a 15-8 advantage. That deficit proved to be insurmountable for MSU, as the Concordia lead grew to as many as eight and never dropped below five on the way to a 25-18 win for CSP.
Concordia found itself trailing by one at 17-16 late in a back-and-forth set two before a four-point run put them back in front at 20-17 in what proved to be the final lead change of the frame. The Mavericks kept things close the rest of the way, but Concordia claimed five of the final seven points to escape with a 25-21 win.
In the third set, the Mavericks found an early spark with a 7-0 run that put them up 11-4. Shortly after, Concordia got hot with a 9-0 run of its own to gain the lead at 16-13. The Golden Bears stayed scorching late in the set, using another run of six straight points that included two kills from Straub and back-to-back aces from Leeland to help slam the door in a 25-17 win.
The victory extended Concordia's winning streak over MSU to 22 matches in a stretch that dates back to 2014.
The Golden Bears will wrap up their road trip on Friday and Saturday with matches at Sioux Falls (S.D.) and No. 15 Southwest Minnesota State.
