St. Scholastica volleyball season comes to End

NSO – NEWS RELEASE

Saints’ Season Ends with Loss at Northwestern

ST. PAUL (csssaints.com) – The St. Scholastica volleyball team dropped the first two sets and could never recover, falling in four sets at top-seeded University of Northwestern in an Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) Tournament semifinal on Wednesday night.

For the first time since the 2007 season, the Saints will not be playing in the UMAC Tournament championship match on Saturday.

CSS hung with the Eagles for much of the opening set and saw themselves down 18-16 before the Eagles used a 5-0 run to take a 23-16 lead. Northwestern ultimately took the set 25-18.

The second set was all Northwestern from the start as the Eagles scored the first three points. After CSS scored back-to-back points, the Eagles rattled off seven of the next eight points and easily took the set 25-14.

The Saints would not go down without a fight as they were neck-and-neck with the Eagles in the third set. The set featured 16 ties and nine lead changes. CSS trailed 23-22, but back-to-back Kortney Morrin (Grantsburg, Wis./Grantsburg HS (Northern State)) kills and then a block by Erika Birkeland (Prior Lake, Minn./Prior Lake HS) and Kariana DeYoung (Deer River, Minn./Deer River HS) gave the Saints the third set 25-23.

The Saints kept with the Eagles in the fourth set and only trailed 13-12. However, from there Northwestern went on an 11-2 run to take control and the match 25-19.

Morrin led the Saints with 20 kills. Playing in her final match, senior Kayla Horbacz (Isanti, Minn./Cambridge-Isanti HS) had eight kills. DeYoung and Taylor Orhn (Coleraine, Minn./Greenway HS) each had seven kills. Birkeland had 31 assists and Danielle Benusa (Shakopee, Minn./Shakopee HS) led the team with 19 digs.

Hallie Mueth had 15 kills and Cari Miller 14 kills to lead the Eagles. Northwestern (22-12) moves on to the title match on Saturday night where it will host the University of Minnesota Morris.

The Saints will finish with a record of 13-16. That is just the third sub-.500 record since Head Coach Dana Moore took over in 1997. For future CSS volleyball news, keep checking csssaints.com