Indianapolis, Ind.- The UMD volleyball team started their second-consecutive tournament weekend with their second-consecutive Friday sweep, earning wins over Missouri-St.Louis and Ashland. The Bulldogs enter the back-half of their UIndy invitational slate  with a 6-0 record.

UMD was locked into a back-and-forth affair with Missouri-St. Louis in their match's first set until 9-5 and 11-7 Bulldog leads built a little bit of breathing room. It would take no time at all for the Tritons to make things claustrophobic, however, as they went on a 4-0 run to knot things up at 11. Not long after, the Tritons snatched their first lead in some time, taking an 18-17 advantage off of a block by Hannah Copeland and Lexie Rang. This prompted a timeout by Bulldog head coach Jim Boos. After both of the day's matches, Boos said that a timeout, while a provider of a useful moment to go over things, is "no magic potion." As both teams will go on to learn throughout different moments of this set, Boos is certainly correct. In this particular moment, however, something must have have clicked for the Bulldogs during the break. They came out of it and immediately slammed their foot on the gas. In the blink of an eye, 18-17 Tritons turned to 19-18 Bulldogs. Another blink, and it was 22-18. Tritons head coach Ryan Young finally called a timeout to try to stop the bleeding, but by then, it was too late. No magic potion. The Bulldogs went on to win the set 25-20. Integral to this resurgence was graduate student Sydney Lanoue, who tallied four kills across the last seven rallies of the set. She ended the set with seven total kills. 

Set two seemed determined to follow a similar path as the first. Things were tight early on once again- in fact, things were even tighter. A 13-10 Bulldog lead became the largest lead either team had had in the set up to that point. UMD then hit their four-point lead quota, going up 14-10 off of a block by a Samantha Paulsen/Grace Daak block. Perhaps trying to learn from his mistakes, Young took this moment to call a timeout. The result wasn't much better this time around as the Bulldogs' lead quickly blossomed to 22-16. Finally, the Tritons started to show signs of life. A quick 2-0 run cut the deficit to four at 22-18, pushing the Bulldogs to call a timeout. When the Tritons rallied off two more unanswered points, Boos rallied off yet another timeout. Alas, the Tritons didn't stop pushing until the score was tied at 22-22. For the first time since the score was 5-4, the Tritons took the lead at 23-22 on the back of a Rang kill. It is here that set two had fully committed to veering off into a different direction, one that put the Bulldogs on the brink of a set loss multiple times. For a while, they were able to answer the call. A service error tied things up at 23. A kill by Hope Schjenken knotted things back up at 24. Yet another Lanoue kill to make it 25-25 sent the set into extras. Unfortunately, that would be the end of the line for the Bulldogs, as the Tritons went on one final 2-0 stretch to close the set at 27-25. 

Set three once again trudged down a familiar path. This set carried the extra razor-sharpness of the second set while resulting in the same 11-7 Bulldog lead as the first set. As was tradition, Missour-St. Louis started to rally back, eventually tying things up at 15-15. A Bulldog timeout was met on the other side by a 4-1 Tritons run that put the score at 20-16. Timeout Bulldogs. 21-19, timeout Tritons. At 21-20, the time for timeouts stopped. The Tritons feverishly closed the set with a 4-0 run to end it at 25-20 and put them up in the match 2-1. 

The Bulldogs entered the fourth set with a fire lit under them, running out to a 5-1 lead and seemingly outrunning the days of close set starts in the process. Not so fast: it was soon 5-5. It wouldn't be until a 13-10 Bulldogs lead that things would start to loosen up, easing an extra inch at 14-10. This sounds familiar. A brief Tritons surge that trimmed the lead to 15-14 was stippled by a 19-14 Bulldog advantage. 21-17 Bulldogs seemed like it may be the end of things until the Tritons made it 21-20. Boos called a timeout here and struck gold for the second time of the morning, his team going on a 4-1 run to close out the set at 25-21. 

In the fifth set, the Bulldogs were red hot out of the gate once again, jumping to a 5-0 lead. A Tritons timeout here meant little to the Bulldogs- their lead was soon 9-3. A second Missouri-St.Louis timeout faired better for them until it didn't. They trimmed the lead down to four at 9-5 before falling down as many as six at 12-6.12-9 meant it was the Bulldogs' turn to take a timeout. While things stayed close afterwards, the Tritons couldn't make up enough ground out of the break to steal the set, the Bulldogs prevailing 15-13 off of another Paulsen/Daak block. 

When the dust settled on what was an eventful opening match for the Bulldogs, Lanoue emerged with yet another career milestone. For the second time this season., Lanoue set a new career high in kills in a single match, this time with 18. Schjenken had 11 kills on a strong .333 hitting percentage. Madison Gordon was as stout as she has ever been as a distributor, registering 66 assists and a single-game milestone of her own. Defensively, the Bulldogs were led by Daak's 8 assisted blocks and Kaylyn Madison's 23 digs. The Tritons' offense was led by Rang's 21 kills and Caitlin Bishop's 48 assists. Mya Elliott had a team-leading seven total blocks, and Kylie Adams led with 15 digs.

UMD's match against Missouri-St. Louis was a marathon; the Bulldogs' effort against Ashland was closer to a sprint. This isn't to say that the Eagles didn't put up a fight, but they didn't offer much of one in the first set. The Bulldogs took a 1-0 lead on a Daak kill and never looked back, leading the rest of the way. While they had frequently held a three-point lead up to this moment in the set, coach Boos called a timeout at 17-14 Bulldogs to try to thwart off a 3-0 Eagles run. Results were mixed, but the Bulldogs did force the Eagles into a timeout of their own at 21-17 UMD. In fact, they got yet another timeout out of them at 23-17. The Eagles tried to make things interesting late, but the Bulldogs would eventually walk away with the set with a score fo 25-20. 

The Eagles opened the second set with the most pressure the Bulldogs had seen out of them across two matchups this year. Before anyone knew it, it was 7-2 Ashland. The Bulldogs tried to stifle things with a timeout to no avail. 13-5 Eagles got another timeout out of Boos, but early results were once again disappointing when the score was soon 19-12. Slowly but surely, though, the Bulldogs willed themselves back into the set. A 20-15 Eagles lead was gradually erased, the Bulldogs going on a 9-4 run until it was 24-24 and anybody's set. The two traded blows until a Schjenken service error put the Bulldogs in a 27-26 hole. Erin Krupar took advantage, snagging a kill that ended the set at 28-26 and evened the match at 1-1. 

The Eagles held no momentum to soar with into the third set. The Bulldogs ran up the score early, taking a 10-3 lead. From there, the Eagles would never be within less than four points of the Bulldogs, the last occurrence of which being at a score of 14-10. UMD then closed things out by outscoring the Eagles 11-6 to win the set 25-16.

It was now the Bulldogs' turn to lack momentum, as the Eagles kept things interesting throughout the fourth set. The Bulldogs touted an 14-8 lead at one point, then an 18-12 advantage, only to squander both of them and let the Eagles within as close as three points late in the match at 21-18 Bulldogs. This was fostered in part by a smart timeout by Eagles head coach Kevin Foeman at 18-12, his team going on a 6-3 run out of the break. Luckily for the Bulldogs, all they really had to do at this point was trade blows with the Eagles to walk away not only the winner of the set, but the winner of the match. That's exactly what they did, sealing the deal with a final score of 25-20. 

Daak led the Bulldogs in kills this match with 15. Gordon had another strong performance as a facilitator, netting another 40 assists. Schjenken had six total blocks this match, which ties her best effort of the season. Kaylyn Madison led the team in digs once again, this time with 21. The Eagles were led on the offensive end by Krupar's 15 kills and Zoey Peck's 42 assists. Defensively, Anna Krikke was at the top of the list with four total blocks, while Katie Thompson had a team-high 20 digs.

TEAM DIAGNOSTICS: 
Really, this wasn't a match spearheaded by a single attacker- the wealth was equally distributed. In fact, this was also true in the Missouri-St. Louis matchup. This is something Boos made mention of post-game when he drew special attention to the fact that five different Bulldogs posted double-digit kills in both of the day's matches. In each instance, the fab five was the same: some order of Lanoue (31 total kills across two matches), Junior Cianna Selbitschka (28), Daak (28), Paulsen (25), and Schjenken (22). This seems to be a winning formula. 

Boos was impressed not only with the nice distribution of kills but also with how his team improved with their distribution of the ball on a serve-receive level between the first and second matches. He hopes that the second installation of that system will prevail on Saturday.

Something else that has contributed to the Bulldogs' success, not only in these two matches but all year, is their ability to, as Boos put it, "rally from behind and play from ahead." Being able to do both of these things consistently is an irreplaceable quality for any team in any sport. While the Bulldogs may be more attuned with taking control of sets across the six matches they've played so far, the Drury and Missouri-St. Louis matches alone are more than enough to showcase the heart and grit these Bulldogs hold regardless of where things stand on the scoreboard.

While the Bulldogs did a lot right this weekend and have in fact done a lot right all season long, they aren't without flaw. On top of a strong amount of pressure against both Grand Valley State and Indianapolis, Boos hopes that his team's game plan will consist of a heightened level of defense. Both of the day's matches made it clear that the Bulldogs have no problem scoring, but the match against the Tritons in particular shows that there can come a day where an opponent doesn't have much trouble, either. Locking this down could evolve the Bulldogs into a whole different beast- and they're already 6-0. 

WHO'S NEXT: 
UMD will close out its second tournament in as many weekends with two final UIndy Invitational matches on Saturday. The Bulldogs will first meet Grand Valley State at 8:00 a.m. before ending their tenure in Indy with a match against tournament-host Indianapolis at 2:00 p.m.