by Dax Larson
November 01, 2005
Usually when a team loses a match without winning a game they feel down. Not the MSU volleyball team. The Mavericks lost to No. 2 University of Minnesota Duluth 3-0 Saturday, but didn’t feel like they lost that bad.
“A lot of kids said after the game they didn’t feel like we lost,” head volleyball coach Dennis Amundson said. “I thought we played pretty good.”
MSU played well against a strong Duluth team who defeated the Mavericks 3-1 earlier in the season. The volleyball squad could hang their heads high after putting up strong scores against UMD. The scores of the games were 30-25, 30-27 and 30-25. MSU now knows what it takes to beat the top teams in the NCC.
“They have a little more experience with winning than we do,” Amundson said. “We had composure and kept competing.”
Senior Tiffany Graham led MSU with 14 kills. Freshman Ashley Nachreiner was behind her with 10 kills. Sophomore Stef Sandstrom added 38 assists and junior Mandy Reuter had 16 digs.
Thursday, MSU went up against Upper Iowa University and came out with a nonconference home win. The win gave the Mavericks their 11th win of the season — one more than the total wins MSU compiled in all of last season. In the match, Reuter played the libero position for the second time this season and posted 20 digs. Junior Cassie Wolpern had played the libero position most of the season but was moved to outsider hitter for this match and handled it well. She was one of three players with a double-double, recording 11 kills and 15 digs. Nachreiner and Sandstrom had the other two double-doubles. Graham again led the offense with 14 kills in the match.
“It was important that we didn’t take them lightly,” Wolpern said. “It was good to perfect our plays and get all the underclassmen in there.”
With four matches left in the season the Mavericks are ahead of last season and pre-season predictions. They have more wins this season than they did last season and they are over .500 in the conference. They look to improve on their record with three conference matches left in the season, one against the top team in the conference, University of Nebraska-Omaha.
The Mavericks will take their 11-12 record and 5-4 conference record to Winona tonight for a nonconference match. Saturday MSU comes home to face conference foe Augustana 7 p.m. at the Taylor Center Augustana is fourth in the conference with a 4-5 record, right behind MSU.
