THE OPENING SERVE:
After a grueling five-day stretch that saw them play two top-ten opponents and 13 sets across three matches in just five days, the Bulldogs will get a much-needed stay in Duluth for this weekend. The grind doesn't stop, though. Two more NSIC foes will come to town, starting with Winona State on Friday, October 7 at 6:00 pm and followed by Upper Iowa on Saturday, October 8 at 4:00 PM. 

SCOUTING REPORT ON WINONA STATE: 
Winona State was almost doomed to come out of the gate slow this season. The Warriors opened conference play on the road against then-#9 Southwest Minnesota State before traveling to Sioux Falls to face a tough Cougars squad. Winona would get to head home the weekend after, but they'd be greeted with some less-than-welcoming opponents in the form of then-#23 Augustana and a still-unbeatable Wayne State group that was #3 at the time.They came out of all of this with a record of 4-7.

With this in mind, take the Warriors' current 9-7 overall record (5-4 in NSIC play) at face value if you dare. Winona has been red-hot recently, boasting a five-match win streak during which they've dropped just one set, that being to Upper Iowa this Tuesday in what was also the Warriors' third match in five days.

Something else that shifts focus away from the team's record is the man behind the bench, Joe Getzin. Getzin is a 25-year head coaching veteran. After three years of helping to develop a volleyball program for Embry-Riddle in Arizona (and a quick season at Portland), Getzin started what would become a 12-year tenure at Division I's Ole Miss. Under his wing, the Rebels would finally reach a once foreign stratosphere: the NCAA tournament. Not only did Getzin take Ole Miss there for the first time in 2006, but he immediately turned around and did it again in 2007. He'd do it again later in 2010. 

Getzin made the switch to the Division II level with Winona State ahead of the 2014 season. Any doubts that may have existed that Getzin's game wouldn't translate to this new field were erased pretty quickly- the Warriors went 19-8 in his first season with the squad. Getzin must have really liked winning as a Warrior, because he's done just about nothing but that since that inaugural year. He holds a 158-67 record with Winona State (a .702 winning percentage) at this point in his nine-year stint with the program. The Warriors have had just one losing season under Getzin's watch back in 2018. In every season but his outlier and his first, still-successful year with the team, Getzin has overseen 20+ wins. If there's anyone that can continue to help a squad make a tough opening to the year a distant memory, it's Getzin.

His players are certainly doing their part to make this a reality, too. The bread and butter of their efforts? Defense. 

Above anything else, the Warriors have proven this season that they are a tough out rally-by-rally. Winona State sits at 18th in the nation in digs per set with 17.62. This is a campaign led by senior Casey Volkmann, who has a team-high 221 digs (4.25 D/S). This overall play style pairs well with a player like fellow Mikenna Joerger, whose team-leading 1.21 blocks per set is good for 20th in the country. Attack the ball the Warriors' way, and there's a good chance it's not going to hit the floor- at least not in the way you want it to. 

They aren't slouches offensively, either. That effort is led by another senior in Madison Larson, who has a team-high 195 kills (3.55 K/S). Jaci Winchell leads the Warriors in assists with 508 (9.96 A/S) as just a freshman. These two help to front a Warrior attack that is nothing if not consistent in its volume. Winona State sits at 23rd in the nation in attacks per set with 37.91.

SCOUTING REPORT ON UPPER IOWA: 
UMD head coach Jim Boos has talked frequently this season about the fact that no two teams are created equal. Perhaps there are similarities that can be zoned-in on, but overall schemes and systems will never be copy-pasted from one squad to another. The relationship between the Warriors and Upper Iowa's Peacocks doesn't seem to buck this trend, though the stats reveal some funny coincidences.

For starters, listen to this. Upper Iowa's slate to start NSIC play? Sioux Falls and SMSU on the road, followed by Wayne State and Augustana at home. The Peacocks fared a little better than the Warriors in this tough opening challenge, managing to snag a win against Augie, but the fact remains that both Upper Iowa and Winona State were dug into early-season holes.

Upper Iowa also seems to be a never-say-die kind of squad defensively. The Peacocks sit at 24th in the country in digs per set with17.24, the second-best clip in the NSIC behind, you guessed it, the Warriors. That on its own isn't so strange of an occurrence. What really seals the deal on making dealing with these squads on back-to-back days so strange (and such a tough task) is that each pair their defensive capabilities with a relentless offense. The Peacocks are 10th in the nation in attacks per set with 38.59. This average does take the top spot in the NSIC in this statistic, right ahead of Winona State.

In spite of all of this, one thing is for certain: Upper Iowa is not Winona State, and Winona State is not Upper Iowa. The Peacocks have their own identity regardless of these happenstances, one that starts with their head coach. 

Aaron Nelson is at the helm of the Peacocks for his 12th season. Despite a slew of assistant coach stops prior to his time with the Peacocks (including one with the 2010 National Champions in Concordia-St. Paul), Upper Iowa was Nelson's first big head-coaching break. His only other head-coaching experience had come in the form of two years with Morningside University in Sioux City, Iowa in 2005 and 2006. Why not take your first opportunity and run with it? That's exactly what Nelson has proved to do.

Things weren't pretty out of the gate for the Nelson era, admittedly. The Peacocks hovered around .500 in his first two seasons before a tough 2013 season that saw the team go 8-22. They'd never have a season like this again, but the earlier trend of sub-.500 continued until 2017. That's when a switch seemed to flip within the program, one that's gone untouched since. The Peacocks had a 21-9 breakout season in what was Nelson's seventh year with the program. Since that year, the Peacocks have had a cumulative record (including the 2017 campaign) of 90-45, a .667 winning percentage. Nelson's squads have only failed to crack 20 wins once in that span, and even then, they had 18.

It's been a mixed bag of a start for the Peacocks this season, though, and they're not in the midst of a big winning streak to help make up for it. They're 10-6 but just 4-5 in conference play, coming off of a loss to a familiar team in Winona State. It'd be an uphill battle for Nelson and company to be able to crack the 20-win plateau once again this season, especially which such still competition all the way down the NSIC field, but it's one he and his squad are determined to fight. 

The offensive weaponry the Peacocks have to work with in this effort is headlined by junior Zoe Semelroth and her 173 kills (2.98 K/S). Assisting attackers like Semelroth has been fellow junior Nicole Pozorski, who has a team-high 537 assists (9.26 A/S). The defensive side of this fight is co-starred by junior Kali Beesecker and her 266 digs (4.59 D/S) and Semelroth's 38 blocks (0.66 B/S). 

BITS FROM BOOS:
For the first time in a long time, the upcoming slate for the Bulldogs doesn't include a team with a low-digit number right in front of their name. To Boos, this doesn't matter much- NSIC opponents are NSIC opponents.

"This is why the NSIC is so challenging- it's not the obvious, it's not the top-ten teams that you know and everybody else can see are super good, it's the fact that we get down into the middle of our conference and you're still talking about high, high level opponents and high quality volleyball," Boos said. "Maybe they've just lost a couple of matches that some of the teams above them have won, but they've been right there, they've been close. I expect both teams to be flying high and bringing in their A-game."

Despite their record, the height of the Warriors' flight isn't much in question currently given the squad's five-game win-streak. For a team like the Bulldogs that have had to survive a slog of tough matches as of late, handling a team like Winona State will be no easy ask. Boos understands this. 

"Winona's on a nice little run here after starting off conference play slow, but some of that's the matchups you have and where you play them," Boos said. "They played really well this past weekend in sweeping both Moorhead and Northern. It's a physical team with some veterans out there but also some new faces. It's going to be a challenge on Friday after a short week."

It won't get much easier when another scrappy squad in Upper Iowa comes to town less than 24 hours afterwards. Though both the opponents and overall logistics of this merciless stretch for the Bulldogs have been, well, merciless, something Boos is no stranger to, he does see a light at the end of the tunnel- one coming from the inside of Romano.

"Upper Iowa's such a grinding team," Boos said. "They keep the ball in play, they make you work, they move the ball around quickly. Aaron's done such a nice job there since he's been there, and It's a very tough team to play because of that. Given it's the third match of the week, and really our fifth match in a matter of nine days, both sides will be feeling the effects of that, and it will be a battle of attrition for sure. Certainly glad to have the weekend at home after this three-game stretch on the road." 

THE SERIES:
If you thought the Bulldogs' streak of having leads in all-time series with their opponents would be in jeopardy this weekend, fret no longer. UMD holds a resounding 78-4 lead in this category over Winona State, but the Warriors won the last matchup 3-1 back in 2021 at a time when they were ranked ninth in the country. The Bulldogs are up 17-2 on the Peacocks overall, winning this last matchup 3-1 in 2021. 

THE BROADCAST: 
If you can't make it to Romano this weekend, click the links below to follow the action of both matches live through the NSIC Network:
vs Winona State (Friday, October 7 @ 6:00 p.m.): https://bit.ly/3fPCRAP
vs Upper Iowa (Saturday, October 8 @ 4:00 p.m.): https://bit.ly/3SFOPfa

LAST TIME OUT:
...Where does one even begin here? The Bulldogs have gone through a stretch of toil as of late, including meetings against then-#7 SMSU, a tough Sioux Falls team and another #7 in St. Cloud State. Through these three matches, UMD played 13 sets. Through it all, unlikely as it might have been, the Bulldogs never dropped a match. They hold the #6 ranking in all of the land now to show for it, one they hope to improve upon even further with strong performances this weekend.

NEXT UP: 
It's one big test after one big test after another for the Bulldogs, and they'll face next weekend's offerings on the road. A battle against Minnesota State on Friday, October 14 will be followed with a marquee matchup between the Bulldogs and the #3 Golden Bears of Concordia-St. Paul on Saturday, October 15.