Duluth, Minn- The #10 UMD volleyball team rose to the occasion in their home opener on Friday by defeating the MSU Moorhead Dragons in straight sets.

The Bulldogs jumped out to a hot start in front of the Romano crowd, developing an early 7-2 lead in the first set. They survived pushback from the Dragons, who narrowed their deficit to as little as two at a few points, before rallying behind a 9-1 run to win the set 25-15. Grace Daak was an offensive standout, registering five kills.

In the second set, the Bulldogs bettered their earlier efforts by jumping out to an 11-3 lead. This early mountain would prove too difficult for the Dragons to scale, as they never brought the lead down to less than five kills for the remainder of the set. The Bulldogs took set two 25-14. Cianna Selbitschka was firing on all cylinders, racking up eight kills in this set alone.

The third set started off razor-tight, the score sitting at just 8-6 Bulldogs early on. At 14-9 UMD, MSU Moorhead would get stuck on nine points for just a little too long, allowing the Bulldogs to go on a big offensive run. By the time the Dragons got another point, the Bulldogs were already sitting at 21 and holding an 11-point lead at 21-10. This paved the way for a 25-12 UMD set win and a 3-0 sweep of the match for the Bulldogs. Sydney Lanoue, who received an honorary shovel before the match for hitting 1,000 digs earlier in the season, closed things out with a service ace. Lanoue also led the team in kills in the final set with seven. 

Selbitschka closed the game as the Bulldogs' leading attacker with 14 kills, Lanoue being right on her tail with 13 of her own. Madison Gordon was efficient as ever as a setter, recording 39 assists. Kaylyn Madison ended the night with 26 digs. Daak had three total blocks to pair with nine kills. 

The Dragons were led by Tori Thompson's six kills and Emily Skalicky's 11 assists. Macie Wieman had 20 digs while Thompson and Jaydn Feist each had two blocks.

Head Coach Jim Boos said being back home in Romano for the first time this season helped dial up the performance of his team.

"We were excited to be back.... just being in the comforts of your own gym where you train everyday, we were excited for that," Boos said. And then you add the number of people and the energy that was in here, new announcer bringing a different energy, I just thought it was a lot of fun to really have those people behind us, and I think the girls played really hard because of it." 

Speaking of his team's performance, Boos noted a strong offensive outing that could still use some fine tuning. A microcosm of what this offense could look like with some more honing could even be seen within this match itself.

"We want to be as terminal as we were," Boos said. "When you're averaging 16.6 kills a set, you're gonna be in a good spot. Just got to eliminate some of the dumb errors, some careless serving errors, and a few other miscommunication mistakes, a couple sets that are just not hittable that we're not getting a quality swing on. You eliminate those things, and I think we really did a nice job bouncing back after set one where we had five hitting errors, to bounce back to having only two hitting errors the next two sets."

Boos pointed out the efforts of both Gordon and the team's outside hitters as key facets of the team's efforts to sharpen their play down the stretch of the match.

"I really thought (Gordon) settled in and got our offense humming. We really did a good job of terminating- especially on the outside, when that tempo's there for those two, they can really hammer that ball into the seam like they did tonight."

The Bulldogs, now 11-0, will continue their mini-home-stand Saturday at 2:00 p.m. when they host the 7-4 Northern State Wolves. Boos pins the Wolves as a team with a strong offense of their own, one the Bulldogs will have to be prepared for through a combination of  rolling with what's working and cutting down on the things that aren't. 

"Looking ahead to tomorrow, we know we certainly have a challenge ahead of us," Boos said. "Northern is an equally good offensive team and is going to bring a lot of offensive energy to the gym, and so we're going to have to serve tough, and continue to be terminal, and try to limit some of the mistakes"

Watch Saturday's match between UMD and Northern State live through this link: https://bit.ly/3r0IZJb

Stay tuned for a full recap of the weekend's matches on Monday.