St. Cloud, Minn. – The UMD volleyball team finished out their season-opening tournament in St. Cloud with wins over Ashland and Seattle Pacific. The Bulldogs swept their slate of the St. Cloud State/Concordia St. Paul Tournament, leaving the weekend with a 4-0 record.

Ashland opened the first set with a Makenna Belcher kill to make the score 1-0. It would be the only time the Eagles would hold the lead for the entire set. The Bulldogs rapidly developed an 11-3 advantage, with Grace Daak notching 3 kills in this stretch. A 14-3 score prompted a timeout by Eagles head coach Kevin Foeman. His Eagles were able to keep pace much more effectively out of the timeout, only being outscored 11-9 from that point onwards, but it was too late. The Bulldogs won the set with a score of 25-12. In this set alone, Sydney Lanoue and Daak combined for 11 kills, with six and five respectively. Madison Gordon racked up 12 assists. 

The second set held a much different tone. Ashland was able to secure a lead for the first time in 37 rallies after a Bulldog service error opened the set. The Eagles parlayed this into a 3-1 lead. The Bulldogs battled back, leaving the tight-knit affair with a 6-6 score. Samantha Paulsen then got a kill for the Bulldogs that gave them the lead- a lead they never gave up. It wasn't for a lack of trying from Ashland, who kept things close for most of the set. The teams were in a dead heat until the 13-12 mark, when it appeared that the Bulldogs might start to place some real distance between themselves and the Eagles. An Avery Eckman ace gave UMD a 17-13 lead, the most sizable lead any team had secured in the set. Just like that, the Eagles came roaring back. With the Bulldogs clinging to a 19-17 lead, head coach Jim Boos called a timeout to try to settle things down. Right out of the break, Eagles Erin Krupar and Abby Stanford combined for a block that made it 19-18. This block must have inspired the Bulldogs, as three straight Bulldog blocks left the score at 22-18, prompting an Ashland timeout. This timeout did little to stop the block party, as the Bulldogs got yet another one to make the score 23-18. In this stretch alone, Bulldogs Grace Daak and Samantha Paulsen had 4 and 3 block assists respectively. From there, the blocks stopped, but the Bulldogs' scoring didn't. They won the set 25-18. 

If the first set consisted of the Bulldogs scorching the earth and the second was a tight-knit affair, the third set was somewhere in between. Here, Ashland never held a single lead, and the only moment this set was tied up after it started was when it was 1-1. An early 8-3 lead for the Bulldogs blossomed into a 13-7 advantage, and it appeared as if this would be a repeat of the first set in due time. These suspicions didn't go anywhere when the Bulldogs led 17-9. Down but not out, the Eagles started clawing back. Three straight points left the score at 17-12 and led to a Bulldog timeout. Slowly but surely, the Eagles continued to chip away at the lead, an Erin Krupar kill leaving the Bulldogs ahead by only 3 with a 20-17 score. This prompted another Bulldogs timeout. Even still, the Eagles' momentum pursued, and they cut the lead down to as little as two after a Bulldogs attack error left the score at 21-19. Finally, UMD was able to pull away. In a fashion fitting for the events of the whole match against Ashland, a Lanoue kill assisted by Gordon gave the Bulldogs a 25-21 set victory. 

Lanoue led the Bulldogs with a 15 kills across the three sets, a career-high for kills in a single match. Gordon led the team with 33 assists. Daak had a team-leading 5 blocks, with Paulsen sitting not far behind with 4. Kaylyn Madison led all Bulldogs with 12 digs. Lanoue edged closer to 1,000 career digs with 9 digs of her own, leaving her with 998. 

Ashland was led by Anna Krikke, who had 9 kills in the match. Zoey Peck led the Eagles with 18 assists. Abby Stanford led with 3 block asissts, while Katie Thompson led with 13 digs.

At 3:30 p.m., the Bulldogs returned to the court to face off against Seattle Pacific. Riding high off of the momentum of the earlier match victory, the Bulldogs dominated the first set against the Falcons, establishing an early 10-4 lead. The Falcons didn't give up, however, making things interesting during a 4-1 run that left the score at 11-8 Bulldogs.This is the moment that the Bulldogs stomped their foot on the gas, upending the Falcons' comeback with 5-0 run of their own to make the score 18-8.This stretch was capped off by two consecutive service aces for the Bulldogs, both by Ciana Selbitschka . From there, the closest the Falcons would get would be to within 5 points of the Bulldogs at a score of 18-13. This was met by a 4-0 Bulldogs run to make the score 22-13. The Falcons clawed to stay in the game, but the Bulldogs proved to be too much. UMD won the set by a final score of 25-16. Offense was evenly distributed, with no Bulldog having more than three kills. Gordon was the primary facilitator of this offense with 10 assists.

Much like the first set, the second set opened with Bulldog dominance as they jumped out to a 9-4 lead. This time, the Falcons clawed back a little harder. An attack error by Paulsen knotted up the score at 13 apiece. The Bulldogs were able to reestablish a 16-13 lead off of a Falcon attack error, this one committed by Sydney Perry. After this, Falcons first-year head coach Jason Rhine called a timeout. In perhaps the best result a coach could ask for coming out of a timeout, the Eagles soared, going on an 8-3 run that saw them leading 21-19. From there, momentum shifted back and forth. Just as the Bulldogs tied things back up at 21-21, the Falcons snagged the lead once again, 23-21. When Seattle Pacific looked primed to tie the match at 1-1 after a Perry kill made the score 24-22, the pendulum shifted in the Bulldogs' favor, allowing them to tie the score up at 24 all. Momentum shifted no longer as the Bulldogs took the next two points to win the set 26-24 off of a Madison Gordon kill. The Bulldogs survived a threat to what was now an eight-set winning streak. 

This was a streak that wouldn't last much longer. This wasn't for a lack of trying from the Bulldogs, who traded blows with the Falcons for much of the third set, keeping themselves within striking distance. This was until a 16-14 Falcons lead ballooned into a 20-14 lead. This stretch included a moment in which a block by Falcons  Perry and Allison Wilks to make the score 19-14 got a timeout out of Bulldog coach Boos. To their credit, the Bulldogs didn't bow down in the face of this late-game adversity. After a Daak kill to make the score 21-17 and force a Falcons timeout, Daak registered yet another kill to cut the deficit to three. Yet another Daak kill was paired with a Paulsen kill to make the score 22-20. Another Paulsen kill eventually brought the Bulldogs to within a point at 24-23. Unfortunately, a Wilks kill sealed the set for the Falcons, with a final score of 25-23.

It became clear rather quickly in the fourth set that the Bulldogs were not deterred by the Falcons tarnishing a shot at going perfect on the day. To open the set, the Bulldogs took a 9-4 lead of their own. The closest the Falcons would get to withering away at this lead was when they made the score 13-9. The Bulldogs fired back to take a commanding 18-9 lead, and they hardly let up for the rest of the set. A Selbitschka kill assisted by Gordon (who had 15 assists this set) ended things, the final score being 25-17. Daak had an impressive set for the Bulldogs, leading the team with five kills and also registering three block assists.

Daak and Paulsen both led the team in kills this match with 12 apiece. Gordon outdid her effort in the Ashland match and racked up 47 assists against the Falcons. Kaylyn Madison led the team with 14 digs, and  Daak made her presence on the scoresheet known once again by leading the team with 5 block assists.

The Falcons were led by Hannah Hair's 13 kills. Lindsey Lambert led with 25 assists. Defensively, Abigail Cunningham led the way with 25 digs, and Perry had a team-leading 4 block assists.

Boos had good things to say about his team's effort across the tournament sweep. 

"Very happy with the weekend," Boos said. "We learned a lot about ourselves and still found ways to win all 4 matches in the process." 

Focusing in on Saturday's game, Boos saw many facets of his team shine across the two matches.

"Today we played very efficiently in the first match and served tough," Boos said. "The second match was a grind - coming back from down 22-24 to win the second set 26-24 was big for us. Shows we are fighters and can grind and score points on the defensive side.  It was humid and hot in Halenbeck Hall so I was happy to see us raise the intensity and execution level in the fourth set to finish the match and the weekend." 

A LANDMARK FOR LANOUE:
Not long into the first set of UMD's matchup against Seattle Pacific, Lanoue, fifth-year graduate student, registered her 1,000th career dig. Boos had high praise for Lanoue as a player, both over her career and over the course of the day's two matches specifically.

"In regards to Syd, first a hearty congratulations from our entire staff. She is a staple of our serve receive and defense and has made big digs throughout her time in our program," Boos said. "As far as this weekend, we had a slow start in match 1 against Drury and switching Syd from Libero to the front row as an outside hitter swung momentum our way.  She had a great weekend offensively - not bad for a Libero to step in and be a terminal option on the outside." 

Lanoue ended the night with 24 total kills, leaving her with 43 on the season. Before this year, the most kills Lanoue had registered across an entire season was 23. She's almost doubled that just four games in to the 2022 campaign.

ALL-TOURNAMENT BULLDOGS
Daak and Hope Schjenken represented the Bulldogs as part of the St. Cloud State/Concordia St. Paul All-Tournament Team. Daak finished the tournament with 40 kills and a .333 hitting percentage while also registering 17 total blocks. Schjenken closed the weekend with 38 kills and a .367 hitting percentage on top of six digs and six total blocks.

WHO'S NEXT:
The Bulldogs will continue their season in yet another weekend tournament, this one in Indianapolis. Friday, September 2nd features matches against Missouri-St. Louis at 8:00 a.m. and Ashland (for the second weekend in a row) at 2:00 p.m. Saturday, September 3rd pits the Bulldogs up against Grand Valley State at 9:00 a.m. and Indianapolis at 3:00 p.m.