Moorhead, Minn.- The #4 UMD volleyball team is 23-3. Heading into last night, they were 22-2. When you're as good as the Bulldogs are (and have been for some time) new wins can be easy to miss, but every single blemish on that record raises an eyebrow. While locked into that Rock-esque pose, it's also hard not to sink into pessimism. This is especially true of a loss like the one on Friday against a stout but unranked opponent, a match without a spotlight because it didn't seem like it needed one. Questions can arise. 

Think of your favorite gif of an athlete shushing the crowd and insert it here. That's basically what the Bulldogs' performance against MSU Moorhead on Saturday was like.

It took a touch of time for the Bulldogs' engines to get going. This allowed for the Dragons to keep things interesting early in the first set. Twelve rallies deep, the score was 6-6. Moorhead had even held the lead at scores of 5-4 and 6-5. Then... If you've been paying attention to this Bulldogs team at all this season, what would follow could have felt inevitable. If your focus had been shifted solely to one off night, then allow for the Bulldogs to realign things for you. Their tool of choice wasn't a massive red cutout of an arrow- it was a 6-0 run. That left the score at 12-6. UMD had been on the opposite side of this score a few times on Friday- not anymore. From this point onwards, it was simply a waiting game until the end of the set. The Dragons never pulled any closer than within five points, and even then, the last time they were there was at a score of 13-8 UMD. The Bulldogs had little interest in playing with their food- they were relentless in their pursuit of wrapping things up as fast as possible. At 25-16, they'd done just that.

There'd been reason for some optimism after UMD's first set against Northern on Friday, but there had still been much left to be desired. The Bulldogs' performance in the first frame on Saturday felt a little different. The team hit at an efficiency clip of .375. If that's not good enough for you, Grace Daak was quite literally perfect. She tallied six kills on six hits. A 1.000 hitting percentage. You don't need anyone to tell you that that was her most efficient single set outing of the year. Cianna Selbitschka added four kills on a .571 clip. Madison Gordon had 13 assists. Perhaps the best part of this formula still hasn't been revealed; through all of this, the Bulldogs had just three attacking errors.

It should again be made clear that UMD did not come into Moorhead to toy with the Dragons, to drag things out. As if they needed to make this more obvious, they proved it again by bettering their efforts at jumping out to a big lead to start the second frame. No 6-6 tie this time- twelve rallies deep, the score was 8-4 UMD. From there, the Bulldogs returned to the 12-6 pit stop, one they'd arrived at this time with a little less traffic. Their path back to a set victory from that point was almost identical to the one they'd traveled before- the Dragons were just a few steps farther back this time. For example, what had been 20-14 UMD in set one was this time 20-12. Even shaving just a few seconds off of your arrival time feels pretty good. At a final set score of 25-14, UMD had accomplished just that. 

Speaking of improvements, Selbitschka again had four kills but did so this time on a hitting percentage of .800. Daak cooled down in this frame, but filling in her place were not one but two bulldogs. Hope Schjenken matched Selbitschka with four kills and netted hers on an efficiency clip of .667. It was Sydney Lanoue that took the crown for kills this set with five, hers still coming on a cool hitting percentage of .300. Gordon had 14 assists. Attacking errors? 4-7 in favor of UMD. 

Just because UMD had vested interest in wiping their hands with this match as soon as possible doesn't mean the Dragons were on the same page, regardless of how close the job was to being done. The Bulldogs were able to continue their trend of reliable replication by hitting the 8-4 mark once again, but they'd fall just short of the 11-5 mark that had forced a timeout from the Dragons in set two. Remember, marginal differences can matter- allow Moorhead to demonstrate. At 10-6 UMD, the Dragons came storming back into the frame. Two quick points made it 10-8, and a Tori Thompson block out of the ensuing Bulldogs timeout brought the Dragons to within one.

"Enough," the UMD offense (probably) said.

Within the Bulldogs' 8-3 run that would follow, all but two of those points came off of kills. The exceptions? Two service aces, one by Kaylyn Madison to make it 12-9 and another by Mary Satori to seal the deal on the run at 18-12.  Timeout Moorhead- yeah, hard to argue with that. Unfortunately for the Dragons, what was done was done. Much as they had done towards the end of the previous two sets, the Bulldogs kicked things into cruise control. A 7-4 run was all they needed to close out the frame at 25-16 and take the match 3-0. 

Consistency is often rewarded. Finally, Selbitschka laid claim to the throne of the team's top attacker in set three. She had five kills and completed a hat trick of strong hitting percentages with a clip of .625 for the frame. Daak got back to her old habit of baking up kills, racking up four on a percentage of .429. Lanoue was right in the fold again too, adding four kills at an efficiency rate of .571. Gordon had her best set of the evening with 15 assists. As a unit, the Bulldog offense also had its standout effort of the day with 19 total kills on a .444 (!!) hitting percentage. Best of all? Only three attacking errors. 

Looking at UMD's cumulative numbers for the match feels like stargazing. At the top of a marvel of an offensive crop was Selbitschka with 13 kills. Like that wasn't enough, she also led the team in hitting percentage at .650. Daak and Lanoue joined Selbitschka at the double-digit kills plateau, each recording 11. Daak did this on a clip of .600, Lanoue getting hers on a still-solid percentage of .320. When it comes to efficiency, it goes beyond these three- nearly every single Bulldog that swung at the ball at least once on Saturday did so at a percentage above .300. When you put it like that, the team's final hitting percentage mores more sense: .400. Still, though, it doesn't really make much sense- that number is absurd. To put this in perspective, even for an offensive enigma of a team like UMD, .400 is their second most efficient outing of the season. Only a team like The Bulldogs could respond from a .400 opponent hitting percentage a night earlier with one of their own. Oh, and attacking errors? The Bulldogs did better than cutting those in half, going from 23 against the Wolves to just 10 on the day against the Dragons. 

In light of all of this, the Bulldogs still found time for some defense. In fact, their leading kill-getter in Selbitschka was the one that ended the night with the most digs at 18. In total, the Bulldogs out-dug the Dragons 44 to 32. Moorhead won the block race 5-2, UMD recording just two solo blocks between Samantha Paulsen and Daak, but it's hard to imagine much sleep will be lost there. 

Moorhead was led by a pair of attackers at dramatically different points in their seasons. Bridget Witzmann has been tasked with carrying the brunt of the Dragons' offensive workload this season. She found success in this again on Saturday with seven kills. A major reason Witzmann has been such an offensive firecracker this year is because of the early-season loss of Amanda Carlson. No need to fill Carlson's role anymore- she jumped back into the fold earlier this week. It would appear as if Carlson is starting to return to form, too, as she racked up seven kills of her own on a hitting percentage of .350. Emily Skalicky had a team-high 16 assists. Defensively, Brooke Walthall led the Dragons with nine digs. Blocks-wise, Moorhead had a case of the twos. Tori Thompson had two solo blocks, and Teeya Doppler had a solo block of her own to pair with a block assist. 

BITS FROM BOOS:
On a night where your offense was as efficient as can be, why not strive for conciseness of your own when describing what went right? This, rather than the spotty cell service of northern Minnesota, was certainly what influenced UMD head coach Jim Boos' comments about his team's performance.

It was an offensive outing that would have been impressive if it was dropped at any other place in the season, but its importance reaches a new height here coming off of a tough loss where things didn't go as planned. Boos' comments reflect this.

"That's the encouraging part is we were able to take last night and really just set it aside and forget about it, get back to what it is that had made us successful throughout the year," Boos said. "Control the serve-receive, establish the middle of the net and get some kills out of the middle, and then that allows you to open up the pin attack. Not only were we efficient, but we were terminal at a pretty high level- averaging 16 kills a set's a really good number. Very happy with the way the offense ran."

Towards the front of the pack for the Bulldog attack all night long was Selbitschka. Just a week ago, the junior outside hitter was sitting out of her second-consecutive match. This past Tuesday, Selbitschka returned as if she'd never left- in fact, she had a season-high 22 kills. Something must have been in the air this week, because Selbitschka would go on to net her highest hitting percentage of the year of .650 on Saturday. Admittedly, there was a match between these two outings, one that didn't go as well as the season touchstones that bookend it.

Boos understands the totality of this situation, including the fact that Selbitschka's performance against Northern was an exception rather than the norm.

"Obviously, it's big," Boos said. "I'm happier that she bounced back after what was not a great match for her yesterday, for whatever reason. She just struggled- the game in general just wasn't one of her nights, and (she) came back today and really got back to what she does well. It started right out of the gate- you could tell her demeanor was there, she had energy, she was dialed in. If you put the two matches she had against Moorhead together this year, she's got 27 kills, no hitting errors, on 44 attempts. That's pretty special. She certainly has done a nice job for us."