MOORHEAD, Minn. - The Minnesota State University Moorhead Dragons volleyball team took a four set match from the Minnesota-Crookston Golden Eagles on Tuesday evening in the league opener for both teams. The Dragons won their fifth game of the season moving their record to 5-4 overall and 1-0 in the NSIC.
The Dragons did everything they could to preserve a three-set win but the Minnesota-Crookston Golden Eagles pushed the match to four sets as they capitalized on some errors made by the home team as the youth and inexperience shown through in the league opener. The four set scores were: 25-19, 25-20, 23-25, 25-15.
In the first set, the Golden Eagles surprised the Dragons by taking a 7-4 lead but a kill by freshman
Ashley Feldman (Baudette, Minn.) would change the tempo to drive the team to a win. Feldman had four kills in the set, matched by
Heidi Lensing (Belgrade, Minn.) as they led the team. MSUM had 15 kills in the set to UMC's seven.
After the Dragons took set two, the Golden Eagles forced the Dragons to make a few mistakes and came away with the win. The entire set was played with the score within two points of the leader on either side of the board. MSU Moorhead picked up 17 kills to Crooktson's 10 in the third set, with the eight errors on the Dragons side playing the difference in the win.
The final set brought a new attitude to the MSUM side of the court as 15 kills and .261 hitting percentage led to the match victory. The Golden Eagles only manage six kills in the set as they hit a -0.44 in the set.
Senior
Laura Tvrdik (Farwell, Minn.) led the team with 13 kills on the night, she also had three assists and two digs. Feldman finished the evening with 11 kills while Lensing had 10. Running a 6-2 offense,
Leigh Splittstoesser (Stewartville, Minn.) and
Anna Olson (Apple Valley, Minn.) split the set-ups as they had 31 and 20 assists, respectively, in the match.
Katy Ness (Ada, Minn.) had 28 digs to lead the Dragon defense.
MSU Moorhead will return to the court on Friday at 4 p.m. to host Bemidji State at Alex Nemzek Fieldhouse. They will host one more match at home on Saturday, against Minnesota Duluth, before returning to the road in the following week.
