Bismarck, N.D. -  The #14 UMD volleyball team finished out their weekend trip to North Dakota with a sweep, beating Mary 3-0 after having beaten Minot State in straight sets on Friday. The Bulldogs now have a 2-0 NSIC record to pair with a 10-0 record overall to start the year.

Early in set one, it looked like the Bulldogs' objective of getting out of the weekend with goose eggs on the right sides of all of their records was in jeopardy. Mary jumped to a 6-3 lead, forcing UMD to mount a bit of a comeback- something that had been totally alien to them on Friday. The Bulldogs were already doing something at a much higher clip here than they had been against the Beavers: getting in their own way. Three of the six early Marauders points came off of a combination of two errors and a bad set. In fairness to Mary, they played a massive role in causing these kinds of errors with their strong, never-say-die defense. These early struggles by the Bulldogs ended up being a microcosm of a problem head coach Jim Boos gave the Marauders a lot of credit for causing within his team throughout the match. It was an effort that left UMD with six more attacking errors than Mary by the end of the match (18 compared to 12) when the Bulldogs were coming off a match against Minot State where the Beavers had had 17 more (26 compared to 9 for UMD). 

"Tonight, Mary did a really nice job of making it difficult," Boos said. "They made a lot of defensive plays and turned points into some scrambling situations, and I give them a lot of credit for making it a difficult go in terms of where we wanted to be from an efficiency standpoint."

It was Sydney Lanoue that spark plugged a Bulldog effort to dig themselves out of this early grave in this set, as she registered a kill and a service ace en route to her team tying things up at 7-7. After breaking the seal off of a 9-9 tie by way of a Cianna Selbitschka kill, the Bulldogs took the lead and never looked back. The Marauders kept it close until their score got stuck at 11 for just a little too long, allowing UMD to take a 16-11 lead. Then the Marauders got stuck on 12 for even longer until the Bulldog lead was at 10 with a score of 22-12. Two straight Selbitschka kills had made it 19-12, and a timeout at that point by Mary's second-year head coach Abby Pollart had done little to dim the fire. When it was all said and done, the Bulldogs had taken the set 25-14. Selbitschka was a marvel in this first set, registering a team-high seven kills on a .700 hitting percentage. Madison Gordon was as reliable as ever as a setter, earning 17 assists. 

The second set started with a dramatically different pace from the Bulldogs. This time, they jumped out to a 9-2 lead of their own. This run included three-straight Bulldogs kills by three different players and was later book ended by a Kaylyn Madison service ace and two more kills. The early Bulldogs lead capped at 10-3 - then, quickly, it started to fade away. In no time, the score was 12-9, and Boos was forced to call his first timeout of the match. The Bulldogs were facing the same challenge that had once left them down 6-3 and in need of a spark earlier: they were getting their money's worth against the Marauders defense. Five of the Marauders' points in this 6-2 run had come off of Bulldog errors. Only one had been scored by way of a Mary kill. UMD had to buckle down if they wanted to preserve their lead, and to their credit, that's exactly what they did. For the rest of the set after the 12-9 timeout, the Bulldogs committed just three errors of any kind. UMD soared to a 21-11 lead out of the break and eventually closed the set at 25-17. Samantha Paulsen and Hope Schjenken came up big during this set for a squad that needed players to step up in the midst of error troubles. Paulsen had five kills on a .714 hitting percentage while Schjenken had four on a .571 percentage.

The third set followed a similar formula to the second set. Score-wise, the scale was smaller. UMD's early lead only rose to 7-3. Error wise, the scale was unfortunately the exact same. The Marauders were able to parlay five more UMD errors into a score of 9-8 Bulldogs and a fighting chance at a comeback. Here, it seemed the Bulldogs were tired of messing around. They hit a killswitch, racking up six kills to crank the score all the way to 16-9 and the lead all the way to seven. Grace Daak had three kills alone in this stretch, while Selbitschka contributed two more. The Marauders would continue to battle and stay in rallies for the rest of the set. At one point, they'd bring their deficit down to as low as four with a score of 21-17. Unfortunately for them, they were never able to fully recover from the earlier kill shower. The Bulldogs eventually closed out the set 25-19 and won the match 3-0. 

This marked yet another match in which four Bulldogs recorded double-digit kills. Paulsen led the way with 13 and a noteworthy .571 hitting percentage. Selbitschka was right behind her with 12 kills and a .333 hitting percentage of her own. Lanoue finished third in a tight race with 11 kills. Daak had ten kills on the night with a .471 hitting percentage. 

The offensive mastermind working behind the scenes of it all once again was Gordon, who closed the night with 46 total assists. Boos' comments on Gordon's efforts drew comparison to another sport in which UMD fans had rooting interest this Saturday.

""That's the quarterback position in our sport, so they're going to dictate your success and failures a lot more often than any other person on the floor," Boos said. "Our ability to be efficient from an offensive standpoint many times can hinge on (Gordon's) ability to run the offense. There's a lot of times this season where she's done a really nice job of that."

As if all of this wasn't enough, Gordon was able to place a cherry on top of the day by recording six digs over the course of the match to leave her at exactly 500 digs for her career. 

Speaking of digs, the Bulldogs were led in this regard by Lanoue, who had 19. Schjenken had the team-high in blocks with three total.

Mary's offense was led by Nehkyah Ellis' six kills. Maddy Freed and Kameron Selvig each had eight assists to tie for the team lead. Reyna Isenbart topped the team with three total blocks, and Kaia Sueker had a team-high 12 digs.

BITS FROM BOOS:
A major point of conversation with Boos post-game surrounded a crucial facet of sports that goes beyond their X's and O's: crowd atmosphere. Despite a tough loss, Boos gave the Mary faithful a lot of credit for providing a favorable environment for the Marauders throughout the match. 

"Obviously it's their home opener, and we knew they were going to bring energy," Boos said. "They had a nice crowd there that was certainly loud at times when they were making their runs. It's a good precursor of the things we know we're going to face throughout the year in the Northern Sun."

What kinds of things can that atmosphere generate for a home squad? Boos thinks the power level can sometimes be equivalent to the actions of the players on the court themselves.

"I think volleyball is such a momentum-driven sport," Boos said. "That energy can serve as a spark, just like a big block, big dig, big kill, all those things can serve as a spark to get you rolling things in the other direction... It's always going to make it more challenging because it turns your error or your mistake or their good play and just amplifies it a little bit more."

All of this might not have resulted in a win for the Marauders on this day, but it certainly didn't hurt their chances. Boos is looking forward to seeing his team get a shot of their own at playing in this kind of climate for the first time all season next weekend.

"Certainly as we come home here for the next two weekends, we're excited to have that on our side and to be in the friendly confines of Romano Gym," Boos said.

UP NEXT:
The Bulldogs will enjoy some home-cooking for the first time all season next weekend when they settle into Duluth for a pair of matches against NSIC foes. UMD's home opener comes against Minnesota State Moorhead on Friday, September 16th at 6:00 PM. The Bulldogs will close out their staycation weekend with a match against Northern State on Saturday, September 17th at 2:00 PM.