The latest installment of the storied rivalry between University of Minnesota Duluth and Concordia University, St. Paul went to the visitors, as the third-ranked Golden Bears out-dueled the top-ranked Bulldogs 3-1 at Romano Gymnasium on Tuesday night in a non-conference match. The two teams tied for second in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference did nothing to separate themselves in that regard, each still 6-1 in league play with No. 1 UMD falling to 13-3 overall well No. 3 Concordia moves up to 12-3 on the season.

After spotting the Golden Bears a 3-0 lead, the Bulldogs bit back in the opening set, knocking down 19 kills while hitting .368 and siding out at a 68 percent rate. Concordia, meanwhile, collected just nine kills in game one while early errors by UMD kept them alive before the Bulldogs finally secured the win at 27-25 on an exclamation point kill by senior outside hitter Mariah Scharf, who finished with a match-high 17 on the night. The teams exchanged fortunes in the second set, with Concordia hitting .407 with 14 kills while UMD made seven errors with just eight kills to hit .029 and fall 25-14 and knot the game at 1-1.

The Bulldogs would make 10 attack errors in the third set, part of a season-high 30 on the season to go with six reception errors, 11 service errors, three blocking errors, and three ball-handling errors on the night. Not surprisingly, head coach Jim Boos called the difference in the game "the number of errors. Concordia is always been a team that doesn't error at a high rate. They were in sync and in system a lot more, and it resulted in them erroring less. I liked how aggressive we were, I liked the high number of kills, but we just made too many mistakes." The Bulldogs would out-kill the Golden Bears 56-48 in the match, but the errors did them in in the third set, falling 25-20 as well as in a back-and-forth fourth set that ended 25-23 in favor of the visitors.

First-year libero Erin Schindler and junior outside hitter Taylor Wissbroecker would lead the Bulldogs with 10 digs each while Concordia senior libero Taylor Dordan had a match-high 12. Senior setter Ashley Hinsch had 53 assists for UMD while the Bears' Kasey Williams collected 43. Concordia also forced attack errors on UMD by collecting 10 blocks, led by five from senior middle blocker Heather Schiller while UMD had four, led by three by junior middle blocker Sydnie Mauch.OUTSIDE HITS
Per Concordia-St. Paul's sports information department, the Golden Bears moved to 11-0 all-time against No. 1-ranked teams ... UMD still holds the all-time edge against CU, now 23-19 against their top rival ... senior middle blocker Monica Turner fell one kill shy of reaching 1,000 for her career, now with 999 after knocking down six on Tuesday night ... Scharf's game-high 17 raised her career total to 980 as she'll be the next member of the 1,000-kill club shortly after Turner ... Wissbroecker completed a double-double with 12 kills on the night while Mauch also added 10 for UMD ... junior outside hitter Anna Schlaak had 16 kills to lead the Golden Bears.

UP NEXT
The Bulldogs hit the road this weekend for a rematch of the 2014 NCAA II Central Region Final when UMD takes on Southwest Minnesota State University. That match is set for 7:00 p.m. Friday night in Marshall, Minnesota.