Arden Hills, Minn. -- The 21st-ranked Nebraska Wesleyan University volleyball team suffered a pair of losses to open the 2015 season at the Bethel University Tournament. NWU dropped the opening match to Concordia College (Minn.), 3-0, then dropped a 3-0 decision to Buena Vista University later in the afternoon.
NWU, which is trying to replace six seniors from last season NCAA III Tournament team, battled hard in the opening match of the year. The Cobbers from Concordia won in scores of 26-24, 25-11, 27-25. NWU had their opportunities to take two of the three first sets but couldn't come through.
Concordia and Nebraska Wesleyan traded points after a 20-20 tie in the first set. A kill by
Malory Dahl tied the set at 24-24 after Concordia had set point. The Cobbers then got a block and took advantage of an NWU attack error to win 26-24.
Set two was dominated by Concordia as they had 12 kills, compared to seven for the Prairie Wolves in the 25-11 decision. In the third set, NWU trailed 24-22 before mounting a rally. Three straight attack errors by the Cobbers gave the Prairie Wolves a 25-24 lead on set point. Concordia then got back-to-back kills to take the lead and win the match on a service ace.
Mackenzie Allen and
Karlie Bracht led the way with seven kills. Allen added 12 digs, while
Kennedy Hegert had a team-high 13 digs in her first match as libero.
With no time to look back at the loss, the Prairie Wolves took the court again to battle Buena Vista University. The Beavers came out swinging and pounded out 41 total kills, compared to just 25 for NWU. Nebraska Wesleyan had 20 attack errors, six reception errors, five service errors and three block errors as they struggled in the second match of the day.
As a team, NWU hit just .047, compared to .243 for Buena Vista.
Malory Dahl and
Karrie Sestak each had six kills to lead the Prairie Wolves. Hegert recorded 16 digs and
Kelsey Bahe dished out 21 assists.
Nebraska Wesleyan will look to get into the win column on Saturday as they play two more matches in the invitational. NWU takes on Wisconsin-Superior at 9:00 am, then the host school Bethel at 1:00 pm.
