ST. PAUL, Minn. – The No. 21 Winona State volleyball team's impressive run through the NSIC Tournament came up just short, falling to No. 1 Concordia-St. Paul Sunday afternoon at the Gangelhoff Center in St. Paul.
The Warriors (20-10), who swept No. 4 Northern State and earned a five-set win over No. 2 Southwest Minnesota State to earn a spot in the championship match, were unable to beat their fifth-straight nationally-ranked opponent, as the Golden Bears took the 3-1 (25-19, 25-20, 21-25, 25-13) win.
Maria Fruechte led the Warriors with 15 kills and 14 digs while hitting .250 for the match. Joining her with a double-double was Taylor Goar, who added 11 kills and 14 digs.
Jamie Cairncross had a match-high 24 digs and surpassed the 1,000 dig mark in her career, just the 12th Warrior in program history to do so.
Fruechte and McKenna Larsen were two of six players voted to the NSIC All-Tournament team along with Concordia's Emma Lange and Riley Hanson, Minnesota Duluth's Mariah Scharf and SMSU's Abbey Thissen.
WSU fell behind in the first two sets and were unable to recover as Concordia pulled ahead 2-0.
The Warriors found a groove in the third set, though, hitting .317 as a team with 18 kills in the third set. The Warriors used a pair of runs to pull ahead. With the score tied 7-7, the Warriors answered with five straight points capped off by a Danielle Rampart to take a 12-7 lead. Then after a run by Concordia to cut the lead to just one at 14-13, WSU went on another 7-1 run to take a 21-14 lead and provided more than enough breathing room as back-to-back kills from Lauren Kudronowicz and McKenna Larsen closed it out with a 25-21 win. Taylor Goar led WSU in the third set, picking up four kills while hitting .444.
WSU was unable to keep its momentum in the fourth set. WSU had a 5-4 lead early, but a 5-0 run for Concordia pulled the Golden Bears ahead 9-5 and eventually the lead stretched to 15-8 to allow Concordia to put the match away with a 25-13 win.
Concordia earns an automatic bid to the NCAA Central Regional Tournament, which will be played December 3-5 at a regional campus. The complete NCAA championship bracket will be announced on Monday, November 23 via a webcast selection show on www.NCAA.com at 6:30 p.m. (CT).
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