#4 Wayne State captured their fourth Northern Sun Conference volleyball regular season title in the last five years Friday evening with a dominant sweep at #8 Concordia-St. Paul in a matchup of the top two teams in the NSIC by scores of 25-21, 25-14, 25-13. The Wildcats improve to 27-2 on the season and 18-1 in the NSIC while the host Golden Bears slip to 21-6 and 16-3 in league play.
The first set was a back-and-forth battle that saw several lead changes (seven ties/six lead changes) and momentum with the Wildcats scoring the final six points of the opening set for a 25-21 victory.
WSC was down 12-10 and 14-12 when the Wildcats six of the next seven points to grab an 18-15 lead forcing a Golden Bear timeout. Senior middle hitter
Mia Berg had three straight kills while
Mattie Kamery followed with another to spark the scoring run.
Concordia-St. Paul then responded with their own scoring surge and used three service aces to regain the lead at 21-19.
The Wildcats then scored the next six points, highlighted by a pair of Kamery service aces along with a block from
Chloe Hanel and
Channatee Robles and a set-clinching kill by Hanel to close with a 25-21 set win.
Delaney Miller, Robles and Berg each had four kills to lead the Wildcat attack in the opening set.
The second set saw the Wildcats force nine CSP attack errors and never trailed in controlling the Golden Bears 25-14. WSC took an early 4-0 lead and still held a 12-8 lead when the 'Cats extended the advantage to 19-10 and closed with a convincing 25-14 set win.
Miller had another four kills to lead WSC in hitting. Berg added a pair of blocks and two kills while Hanel and Robles each had service aces.
The Wildcats left no doubt about the match in the third set posting 16 kills with no errors on 32 attacks for a .500 hitting percentage and cruised to a 25-13 set win to complete the sweep.
Berg accounted for five kills in the third set with Hanel, Miller and Robles each adding three for the Wildcats. WSC was strong again on defense holding CSP to a .121 hitting percentage with seven errors.
For the match, Wayne State hit .366 with 42 kills and just five errors on 101 attacks while Concordia-St. Paul had a .154 percentage on 38 kills, 20 errors and 117 attacks. WSC held a 53-51 edge in digs while both teams had four blocks and four service aces.
Berg and Miller each had 11 kills to pace Wayne State in hitting. Robles followed with eight kills and Hanel added seven. Berg recorded a team-best three blocks while Kamery collected two service aces and a pair of blocks.
Defensive specialist
Reese Johnson notched a team-high 13 digs with junior libero
Anna Borner, Kamery and
Molly Romano each producing eight. Romano was credited with 30 set assists in the contest.
The Wildcats close out the NSIC regular season schedule Saturday with a 4 p.m. contest at Winona State.
