The No. 20 University of Minnesota Duluth volleyball team gears up for a Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) split series this week as it travels to Bemidji State Thursday for a 6 p.m. contest at BSU Gymnasium before returning home to host Minnesota Crookston at 2 p.m. Saturday at Romano Gymnasium. The match will be broadcast live on My9 Sports. The Bulldogs enter the series with an 11-1 overall record and a 4-0 league record. They have swept their opponents in seven-straight matches.

LAST TIME OUT: UMD swept Northern State and RV Jamestown in its home-opening weekend at Romano Gymnasium Friday and Saturday. The Bulldogs hit .305 as a team over the pair of contests and led the NSIC with 3.0 blocks per set. UMD also held its opponents to a .123 hitting percentage. Freshman Kenzie Kiminski led the team with 4.0 kills per set.

SCOUTING BEMIDJI STATE: The Beavers enter Thursday's contest with a 10-2 overall record and a 2-2 NSIC record after falling to Jamestown and Northern State last weekend at home. BSU has three players averaging more than three kills per set, led by Ella Kratochvil's 3.54 kills per set. Nevaeh Carlson is averaging 3.45 kills per set and Ava Athman has a 3.32 kills-per-set average. Hahni Johnson is in her first season as interim head coach at Bemidji State. 

UMD VS. BEMIDJI STATE
Series Record: 101-4
Last Meeting: Oct. 21, 2025 | UMD lost 3-2 (25-17, 17-25, 24-26, 25-20, 13-15)
Streak: UMD, L1
Elyse Karrels hit .750 with 18 kills and had six total blocks despite the Bulldogs falling to the Beavers in five sets on the road in the teams' last meeting. Madeline Guetzkow contributed nine kills, four block assists and four digs and Ava Jones had 50 assists, eight digs and three service aces. Guetzkow and Paige Decker saw action on the court for the first time since missing multiple matches due to injury. 

SCOUTING MINNESOTA CROOKSTON: The Golden Eagles are 3-9 on the season and 1-3 in NSIC play, with their lone league win coming in a sweep of Minot State Saturday. Minnesota Crookston opened conference play with losses to Northern State, Jamestown and UMary. Madison Carsten leads the Golden Eagles with 3.03 kills and 3.03 digs per set, while Lexi Scharold has a team-high 24 total blocks, including seven solo blocks. Head coach Kathleen Rustad is in her first season at the helm of the Minnesota Crookston volleyball team that boasts a roster with a mix of experience and newcomers with seven seniors and six freshmen.   

UMD VS. MINNESOTA CROOKSTON
Series Record: 33-0
Last Meeting: Oct. 16, 2025 | UMD won 3-2 (18-25, 25-21, 23-25, 25-19, 15-11)
Streak: UMD, W33
In the teams' last meeting, Ella Chandler totaled 14 kills, nine digs and two service aces as UMD relied heavily on its underclassmen to defeat the Golden Eagles in five sets on the road. Elyse Karrels had eight kills and three blocks and Kendra Behrens added eight kills. Ava Jones posted a double-double with 50 assists and 17 digs, while Madison Reed totaled 22 digs. 

CLOSING IN ON WIN 600: Head coach Jim Boos is in his 25th season at the helm of the UMD volleyball program and owns a 598-144 career record. He is just two wins away from career win No. 600, which would make him just the 11th active NCAA Division II women's volleyball head coach to reach the milestone. Boos' .806 career winning percentage is tied for third among active Division II head coaches.
 
NSIC SETTER OF THE WEEK: Ava Jones picked up her first NSIC Setter of the Week accolade of the 2026 season and the second of her career (Sept. 8, 2025) Monday after averaging 10.83 assists per set and orchestrating the UMD offense to a .305 hitting percentage in a pair of sweeps over Northern State and RV Jamestown. The Detroit Lakes, Minn., native also averaged 3.0 digs per set, while posting four blocks and three service aces. 

NSIC DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Junior Elyse Karrels earned her first career NSIC Defensive Player of the Week honor Monday after leading the NSIC with 2.0 blocks per set while helping the Bulldogs lead the league with 3.0 blocks per set as a team. She also played a key role in limiting UMD's opponents to a .123 hitting percentage across the two matches. She recorded four total blocks against Northern State, before posting a career high eight total blocks against Jamestown. 

IN THE POLLS: The Bulldogs moved up three spots from last week to No. 20 in the Sept. 21 AVCA-Taraflex Division II Women's Volleyball Poll. UMD is one of five NSIC teams ranked in the top-25 and one of six teams to earn votes in the poll, including No. 2 Wayne State, No. 5 Concordia-St. Paul, No. 11 Southwest Minnesota State, No. 13 St. Cloud State and RV Jamestown. 

2K ASSISTS FOR JONES: Junior setter Ava Jones secured her 2,000th career assist in UMD's league sweep vs. UMary Sept. 11 on a kill by senior Paige Decker that gave the Bulldogs a 22-9 lead in the second set. Jones ranks No. 11 on UMD's career record chart with 2,119 career assists and needs 1,321 assists to surpass Madison Gordon (2019-2023) for the No. 10 spot on the list. 

SWEEPING INTO THE WEEKEND: UMD enters its split weekend having swept its last seven opponents, including CSU-Pueblo, Adelphi, Florida Tech, UMary, Minot State, Northern State and Jamestown. During the stretch, the Bulldogs hit .338, averaged 15.48 kills, 13.76 assists, 1.95 aces, 14.43 digs, 2.21 blocks and 19.64 points per set. They have also held their opponents to a .089 hitting percentage, 8.76 kills, 8.14 assists and 11.29 points per set. The last time the Maroon and Gold swept seven in a row was in 2019 when it swept nine-straight from Sept. 7-27 and took down five teams ranked in the top-25 during that stretch.  

NSIC LEADER: UMD leads the NSIC in points (18.94), opponent hitting percentage (.138) and opponent digs (12.58) heading into its series vs. BSU and Minnesota Crookston. It also ranks second in the league in kills (14.98), service aces (2.0), opponent kills (9.83) and opponent assists (9.25).

HOME SWEET ROMANO: Winning nearly 85 percent of all matches at Romano Gymnasium since 1977 (453-84 overall), UMD has gone undefeated at home 10 times, and has recorded double-digit victories in a season on 22 occasions, including 11-2 in 2025. The last time UMD was undefeated at home was in 2018 when it posted a perfect 13-0 record and won the NSIC Postseason Tournament. 

ACES WILD: Sophomore Brietta Tims leads the league with 0.58 aces per set and is tied for third with 21 total service aces. She has recorded at least one ace in each of the 11 matches in which she's appeared, including a career-high five in the Bulldogs' win at Northern Michigan. Tims ranks 34th nationally in aces per set and 88th in total aces.

KARRELS COMING UP: Junior middle blocker Elyse Karrels ranks second in the NSIC with 1.03 blocks per set and third with a .418 hitting percentage. She also ranks No. 52 nationally in blocks per set. 

SINGLE-MATCH TOP-25: The Bulldogs have put up some big numbers this season, including some single-match highs that rank among the top in the NCAA. Paige Decker's .692 hitting percentage and 19 kills vs. Cal State East Bay ranks No. 5 for min. 20 attempts and tie for No. 19 in a three-set match, respectively. Madeline Guetzkow's .667 hitting percentage vs. Minot State is tied for No. 19 on 15-19 attempts and Elyse Karrels's .750 hitting percentage at CSU-Pueblo is tied for No. 28 on 10-14 attempts. Ava Jones's 42 assists vs. Tiffin are tied for No. 12 and 40 vs. U Mary are tied for No. 26 for a three-set match.