ST. PAUL, Minn. — In a history-making night, the University of Sioux Falls Volleyball Team (20-9) recorded its first-ever win in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Tournament as senior
Bria Barfnecht had 18 kills in a 3-1 victory (25-23, 19-25, 25-21, 25-21) over the defending NCAA DII champion and No. 8 Concordia St. Paul (22-8) on Tuesday night.
In the first round NSIC Tourney win, the Cougars set a program DII mark with their 20
th win. It was a victory that had USF head coach
Joel McCartney extraordinarily proud of his team.
"I am so proud of the composure our team showed tonight," said McCartney, who recorded his 132 career win at USF and 476
th in his career. "We were pretty focused on proving ourselves at the next level and I believe we took another step in that direction with this win," he said.
USF defeated CSP for the second time in two weeks. In fact, after a 3-0 sweep over the Golden Bears on Oct. 27, the Cougars took three of the four sets tonight. After this victory, USF will move on to the NSIC semifinal round and face top-seeded and No. 4 nationally ranked Minnesota Duluth on Friday, Nov. 9. The time of the match will be announced later.
Barfnecht, who now has 1,060 career kills, led USF with a strong all around effort as she recorded double-digit kills for the 24
th time this season. With 18 kills on 32 attacks with just one error, the junior from Delano, Minn., hit .531. Barfnecht also totaled nine digs, two assists and two service aces. Senior
Lexi Scott added 12 kills on 21 attempts for a hitting percentage of .381 in the match. She moved to 991 kills in her career and just nine away from 1,000. She would become the third USF player on the team with 1K kills.
Senior
Makenna Rockeman, who is USF's career kills leader with 1,283, and junior
Abby Feyereisen each posted 10 kills. Feyereisen also led the USF defense with five block assists.
Sophomore setter
Krista Goerger had another standout performance. She totaled 50 assists in four sets for 12.5 assists per set. She also recorded eight digs and one service ace in the contest.
"Our experienced athletes may have steered the ship tonight but the entire team's energy on and off the competitive floor was the real difference maker in this victory," said McCartney.
Game Breakdown
USF jumped out to a 4-0 advantage in the opening set on plays by a pair of All-NSIC performers. Barfnecht, who was named first team all-league, had a kill and second team All-NSIC honoree
Averey Yaksich, who had nine kills on the night, added a service game. USF moved out to a 12-10 lead before CSP rallied. Using a 13-8 run, the Golden Bears took a 23-20 lead and forced a USF timeout. The stoppage in play seemed to help the Cougars, who came out of the timeout with energy and won five straight points. In that set-closing run, Rockeman had a pair of kills to lead the way for USF.
In the second set USF hit for a just a .200 hitting percentage as CSP took control. They took a 15-10 lead en route to a 25-19 victory and a tie in the match at 1-1. In the set, CSP his .462 and had 13 kills and one error while USF had 15 kills but seven attack errors.
In a back-end-forth third set, USF and CSP fought to an early tie at 10-10. Behind a pair of Barfnecht kills, as well as a service ace from senior
Anna Peterson, USF won four of five points late in the set to take a 19-17 lead. After a Golden Bear point, USF, which hit .244 with 15 kills while CSP had 12 kills but just a .158 hitting percentage.
In the fourth and match-clinching set, USF hit a torrid .522 with 14 kills on 23 attacks and just two errors. After CSP took a 10-7 lead, the Cougars had an 8-5 run, keyed by a kill from Rockeman, to draw even. After the teams battled to a 21-21 tie, Barfnecht took control. USF won the final four points of the match as Barfnecht had a kill for the lead at 22-21. After Scott also had a kill, Barfnecht closed the match with consecutive service aces to lead the Cougars into the NSIC semifinals with arguably their biggest win at the DII level.
