ST. PAUL, Minn. – The No. 5 Concordia-St. Paul volleyball team (7-2, 2-0 NSIC) stayed perfect in Northern Sun play with a four-set win over Sioux Falls (S.D.) (4-6, 0-2 NSIC) on Saturday evening at the Gangelhoff Center.
CSP junior
Makenna Nold reached a major career milestone in the match, using an 11-kill performance to become the 25
th Golden Bear in history to cross the 1,000-kill mark. Nold added 15 digs, four aces, and four blocks to secure her fifth double-double of the season.
Senior
Mehlayna Straub was nearly unstoppable on the attack, logging a match-high 14 kills with no errors on 20 swings for a .700 hitting percentage. Junior
Kelsey Cooper was just behind her with 13 kills, four digs, and four block assists.
Julia Gordon also finished in double figures with 10 kills.
Defensively, sophomore
Kaelyn Snoozy led the way with 18 digs, setting a new career high for the second straight match. Libero
Josie Tingelhoff finished with 11 digs, and freshman
Abby Rolbiecki added nine.
At setter, junior
Audrey Waterman led the way with 29 assists, while fellow junior
Reagan Hickey added 19 assists.
Collectively, the Golden Bears hit .228 with 55 kills in the match while limiting the Cougars to a .104 hitting percentage with 39 kills. CSP also led in aces (11-5), blocks (6-3), assists (51-36), and digs (65-61).
Trailing 4-2 early in the first set, Concordia put together a run of 10 points in the next 11 serves to take a commanding 12-5 lead. The run included three service aces, two from Nold and one from Snoozy. The Golden Bears maintained a comfortable advantage for the remainder of the set, going on to win 25-17.
Set two played out in the opposite fashion, with a seven-point run by the Cougars erasing an early 4-2 CSP lead. After the USF advantage reached its peak at 17-10, Concordia claimed six of the next seven points to pull within two at 18-16. That proved to be as close as they would get, with Sioux Falls winning the next four points. Another run by CSP pulled them within two once again at 22-20, but the Cougars strung together two kills and an ace to take the set 25-20 and even the match.
Concordia found an answer in the third set, using an early nine-point run on Snoozy's serve to carve out a 15-5 lead. The Bears' lead never dropped below six the rest of the way, with CSP going on to win the set 25-13. In the fourth set, Concordia worked out to a 5-2 and never looked back. The CSP advantage reached as many as nine on the way to a 25-18 win to take the match in four sets.
The win improved Concordia's all-time record against Sioux Falls to 19-6, including a mark of 10-2 in home matches. The Golden Bears have now claimed victories in six straight meetings between the two teams.
The Golden Bears will hit the road for a pair of NSIC matches next weekend, playing at Augustana (S.D.) (7-3, 1-1 NSIC) on Friday before heading further south for a meeting with No. 2 Wayne State (Neb.) (9-1, 2-0 NSIC) on Saturday.
