THE OPENING SERVE:
The #4 UMD volleyball team is still fresh off the heels of a five-set dandy against #7 St. Cloud State in Romano on Tuesday night. It was the kind of match that would quite justifiably leave anyone- even the fans- wishing nothing more than to sit in an ice bath for the rest of the week to recover. Really, it's hard not to imagine that the 22-2 Bulldogs have been in a perpetual state like that for much of what has been a rewarding but grueling year. Unfortunately, the Bulldogs will soon learn once again that it's difficult to set up ice baths on a bus. 

UMD will start the weekend with a journey to Aberdeen, SD to face Northern State on Friday, October 28 (6:00 p.m.) before closing it out back in Minnesota at MSU Moorhead on Saturday, October 29 (2:00 p.m.). It'll be the last time the Bulldogs have to play the role of visitor this year- in the regular season, at least. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

SCOUTING REPORT ON NORTHERN STATE: 
It feels like the last matchup between UMD and Northern State was years ago, but it's only been a month or so.

Heading into that September 17 contest, the Bulldogs were 11-0, #10 in the country, a day removed from a sweep of a home opener. It was still a blossoming season, but UMD was already a team to be reckoned with. The 7-4 Wolves came into Romano ready for the challenge, looking to sour the party- and they sure played like it. 

It'd be easy to look back on the 3-0 result for UMD and figure they had control the entire way through. A more keen-eyed look at the box score, though, would reveal a much different story. In each of the first two sets, the Bulldogs were pushed all the way to extra rallies. In fact, the Wolves had UMD on the ropes in the first frame with a 24-22 lead and looked poised to secure a huge early lead. Despite a Bulldog rally, Northern State found themselves a point away from first-set glory again at 25-24. Unfortunately for the Wolves, UMD did what they'd already grown accustomed to doing by this point in the season, a muscle they've gone on to flex countless times more throughout the rest of the year: they battled. Battles may not always be the prettiest, but what matters most is that you come out on top in the end. That's exactly what UMD did, culminating in a 25-17 win in set three in which the team looked much sharper.

Since that day, the two teams involved have followed trajectories that were rather predictable given the way they played each other. We know all too well about the Bulldogs' sustained success, but the Wolves' ability to turn their season around deserves attention, too. Northern State fell to 7-5 after losing to UMD- since then, they've gone 8-4. That situates them with a record of 15-9. A 10-6 record in NSIC play lands them in sixth in the conference, right in the thick of the postseason field. In a conference as unforgivable as this one in terms of the talent pool, that's nothing to shake a stick at. 

To accomplish this, Northern State has leaned on the same aspect of their game that had given them success heading into Romano a month ago: offense. It's not quite a top-50 ranking anymore, but the Wolves' #54 spot nationally in kills per set at 13.18 is still of note. And though it's not tenth-best in the country anymore, the Wolves' impressive hitting percentage of .250 is still good for 27th. Time has actually kicked their assists per set ranking up two spots from 48th to 46th, the team clicking at a rate of 12.26. 

This operation has been headed by familiar names. Graduate student Sally Gaul still leads the Wolves in kills, now with 293 (3.81 K/S). Senior standout Keri Walker has continued to feed Gaul and others the ball at an impressive level. Walker's 11.04 assists per set is good for 11th in the country. 

Something that was given more of a glance-over the last time UMD encountered Northern State was the Wolves' defense. Time has proven to make that a regrettable decision. All of the sudden, Northern State is 36th in the country in blocks, averaging 2.25 a set. The head Wolf here is also the same as it was before: Abby Brooks. The Sophomore now has 82 blocks on the year on an elevated pace of 1.17 blocks per set (the 14th best clip in the country). There are still no surprises to be found when it comes to digs. Junior Madison Langlie still leads the team in that regard with 334. She too has improved her per set output, jumping up to a rate of 4.34. 

These stats demonstrate that Northern State is a team that demands respect, AVCA ranking or no AVCA ranking. It's not like the Bulldogs are a team that needed to hear that anyways- they've already seen it with their own eyes. 

SCOUTING REPORT ON MSU MOORHEAD:
As was the case with the Wolves, UMD's earlier matchup against MSU Moorhead ended up being a pretty clear sign of the path that lay ahead for the day's opponent. 

Remember the 3-0 home opener that was alluded to earlier? That was against the Dragons. This time, there's not much else to read into- the Bulldogs simply had total control over the match. 25-15 first set, 25-14 second, 25-12 third, let's go home. To be clear, MSU Moorhead wasn't some winless bunch going into this contest. This loss only dropped them to 5-6 on the year with plenty of time to make corrections and get back on the right side of .500. Sure, they had lost their third consecutive road match of the season, but there'd be plenty more of those to go out and win.

Opportunities, at least. A month and some change later, the Dragons hold a road record of just 1-9. This makes up the brunt of the reason behind the squad's 7-17 record on the year, their 4-12 conference record.

MSU Moorhead may still be in the red when it comes to home contests, but their 3-5 record in that arena is far less damaging. In that way, the Dragons are likely pretty thrilled that they'll be playing host to the Bulldogs on Saturday.

There's no doubt that MSU Moorhead is through the moon to have regained the services of Amanda Carlson. The senior outside hitter played in just one match for the Dragons before being sidelined for the entire season up until this past Tuesday. Carlson didn't immediately light the world on fire- she had just 13 attempts in her return- but that's to be expected. If she can in time become the All-NSIC Second Team Carlson of old, this Dragons squad will immediately become a massive trap matchup down the stretch for squads simply hoping to add another conference win to their resumes. 

In Carlson's absence, the Dragons' offense has continued to be led by the attacking machine that is Bridget Witzmann. The junior outside hitter is now 31st in the entire country in attacks per set with 10.55- that's second in the NSIC. She's third in the conference in total attacks with 865. Witzmann's efforts have netted her 268 kills on a kills per set clip of 3.27. Freshman Emily Skalicky has continued to be the primary feeder of this attacking frenzy. She leads the Dragons in assists with 583 (7.11) .

Defensively, there's a new name to watch out for since the last time these two teams met (other than Carlson): Macie Wieman. The freshman libero has taken the mantle as the team's leading dig-getter, amassing 322 on the season at a rate of 4.03 digs per set. Senior Elise Bakke still leads the charge in blocks for the Dragons with 58 (0.75 B/S). 

The Bulldogs are a team with aspirations of hosting Regionals. Right now, those thoughts are just that: aspirations. If UMD can't take care of business against the Dragons, Carlson or no Carlson, then those dreams might turn to dust pretty quickly. MSU Moorhead has exactly nothing to lose on Saturday, and they're going to play like it. If a healthy Carlson is at the helm, that's going to be an even scarier recipe. 

BITS FROM BOOS:
The last time the Bulldogs were gearing up to face these two squads, the season was a fresh as could be. Teams knew they may be seeing each other a second time around some day in the future, but handling the first encounter was a bit more pressing. When you're stacking two teams up against each other for the first time in a season, you can only analyze what they've brought to the table up to that point. In a rematch, not only do you still have this to work with, but you can also study how a team has changed since you last faced them. This analysis can also be applied internally, too. To UMD head coach Jim Boos, this Bulldogs squad is one that has evolved defensively since the last time it encountered Northern State.

"I think you can see in some of the matches we've played over the last month and a half just our ability to grind when the offense isn't quite clicking as well as we'd like it to be clicking or when the other side is making things difficult and you've got to find a way to slow things down at the net and make some plays in the back court," Boos said. "I feel like we've certainly been able to do that in some of the matches where (our) offense isn't quite as efficient or as effective as you'd like."

This is good, since the Wolves' offensive abilities haven't faltered much at all since September. Boos knows the names that make up this unit all-too well. 

"Heading to Northern, we know they certainly have an extremely talented right side grad student in Sally Gaul who's one of the top attackers in our league who certainly gets a lot of opportunities and does a lot of great things,"  Boos said. "And then they've got some athleticism in the middle and some players on the outside that have some really heavy arm swings. They present a stiff challenge for your defense, and it's going to be about figuring out how we need to defensively game plan to try to be in positions to make some plays against them."

These names (and more) will certainly provide a great challenge for this Bulldog unit to prove that it's made strides throughout a month of NSIC play.

Speaking of challenging players, enter Amanda Carlson to the stage once again. Carlson presents difficulty to Boos and company heading into Saturday in more ways than one. Not only that, but the Dragons are simply a different team in general than the one they were in September. Ultimately, all the Bulldogs can do for sure is some more internal analysis, make sure all is well within the workings of their own system. 

"Looking back to when we played them the first time, there's quite a bit of change that's occurred in terms of who's on the floor and what they're doing from a personnel standpoint," Boos said. "The Amanda Carlson situation just adds another wrinkle to that... a lot of question marks, because that was her first appearance in quite some time, since very early in the season. It's a little bit of a bigger challenge to try to figure out exactly what they're going to do... you have some general ideas of what their system is and you game plan that way, and then most importantly in scenarios like that, you just have to make sure you're doing things on your side of the net to put yourself in a successful position to be able to score points."

THE SERIES:
With wins over both Northern State and MSU Moorhead in their last encounters with the clubs, the Bulldogs have extended their all-time series leads over these programs to 54-5 and 65-13, respectively.

THE BROADCAST:
Follow all of the weekend's action live through the NSIC Network by clicking the links below:
vs Northern State (Friday, October 28 @ 6:00 p.m.): bit.ly/3xgPCu3
vs MSU Moorhead (Saturday, October 29 @ 2:00 p.m.): bit.ly/3DjF9SH

LAST TIME OUT:
What a last time out it was... On Tuesday, UMD came out on the right side of a 3-2 slugfest against #7 St. Cloud State in Romano. This marks the second time this year that the Bulldogs have defeated the seventh-ranked Huskies on a Tuesday, if you're into statistical anomalies. 

UP NEXT:
UMD will close out the regular season with a weekend home stand. First on the agenda will be a meeting with UMary on Friday, November 4 at 6:00 p.m. Minot State will be UMD's opponent to close out their non-tournament campaign with a match on Saturday, November 5 at 2:00 p.m.