Sophomore outside hitter
Delaney Miller produced a match-high 20 kills to lead top-seed and second-ranked Wayne State past Augustana 25-12, 25-18, 20-25, 25-14 in the opening round of the Northern Sun Conference Volleyball Tournament played Tuesday evening at Rice Arena in Wayne. WSC now improves to 29-2 with the win while Augustana ends the season with an 18-11 record.
Wayne State came out on fire from the service line in the opening set, recording six service aces, while never trailing for a 25-12 first set win.
Senior
Channatee Robles started the match with two aces in the first three points. Midway through the set, sophomore
Mattie Kamery had a pair of aces within three points. Miller had five kills in the opening set as WSC hit .375 as a team to get off to a quick start.
The second set was much closer but the 'Cats pulled away late for a 25-18 second set victory. The set featured six ties and a pair of lead changes. With the score knotted at 13-13, WSC scored the next three points to take the lead for good on an Augustana service error, Kamery service ace and kill by Robles for a 16-13 lead forcing an Augustana timeout.
Augustana closed within one at 16-15, but the 'Cats scored the next five points for a 21-15 lead and never looked back. Highlighting the scoring run were kills from Robles and Hanel along with two kills by Miller and another Robles service ace.
Miller's six kills paced the 'Cats in the second set with Hanel and Robles each adding three.
WSC opened the third set with an early 3-0 lead, but it was all Augustana after that as the Vikings scored the next seven points for a 7-3 lead and the 'Cats never got closer than three points the rest of the set as Augustana forced a fourth set with a 25-20 win.
Hanel had six kills in the set with Miller adding four as WSC was held to a .149 hitting percentage in the third set.
The start of the fourth set was in favor of the visiting Vikings 6-0. The 'Cats were still down 9-4 when junior setter
Molly Romano served 12 straight points that included an ace putting Wayne State in front 16-9. WSC forced six attack errors and used four Viking serving errors to take control of the set and finish with a 25-14 win.
Miller ended with five more kills in the fourth set while Robles had two more aces and five digs.
Wayne State finished the match hitting .257 while holding Augustana to .185. The 'Cats held a 52-44 edge in kills and 63-56 in digs. Augustana out-blocked WSC 6-3 but the Wildcats had an NSIC Tournament record 13 service aces in the win and just three errors while Augustana had six aces and 10 serving errors.
Miller's 20 kills led the Wildcats in hitting while Hanel finished with 11. Robles and Kamery each recorded 15 digs with junior libero
Anna Borner added 11 and fifth-year defensive specialist
Reese Johnson 10. Robles accounted for five service aces with Kamery adding three. Romano was credited with 38 set assists.
Wayne State will now host the NSIC Tournament semi-finals and finals on Friday and Saturday at Rice Arena. The Wildcats are playing #5 seed St. Cloud State Friday at 5 p.m. in the first semi-finals with #2 seed Concordia-St. Paul battling #6 seed Minnesota Duluth in the 7:30 p.m. semi-final with the championship match set for Saturday at 4 p.m.
