Box Score
DULUTH, Minn. -- The No. 22-ranked Minnesota State University Moorhead gave No. 4-ranked Minnesota-Duluth all it could handle on its home floor on Saturday but lost a tough five-set contest to the Bulldogs, losing, 25-19, 16-25, 26-24, 20-25, 15-11 at Romano Gym in Duluth, Minn. The loss ended a seven-match winning streak for the Dragons (9-2, 1-1 NSIC), while Bulldogs (11-0, 2-0 NSIC) continued their unbeaten start to the season.

Sophomore Annie Palmquist led the way for MSUM with 17 kills, while sophomore Maggie Gruber had 10. Freshman Kaitlin VanWinkle had nine kills, four solo blocks and six block assists. Freshman Casie Baer had 31 set assists while senior Anna Olson had 22. Senior Katy Ness had 22 digs in the contest.

Kate Lange's 29 kills paced UMD, which hit .249 for the match, compared to .208 for MSUM.

"We had our chances in the third set to win and go up 2-1," MSUM head coach Tammy Blake said. "In the fifth set we let them get a 6-1 jump on us and then battled back from there. We could have won the match but we did not execute when we needed to."

The Dragons were down 2-1 in the match after losing a hard-fought third set. MSUM held a 20-19 lead in the fourth set but scored four straight points -- with VanWinkle and sophomore Sam Sullivan each recording a kill and a block assist -- to push the lead to 24-19. One point later, a block by VanWinkle helped the Dragons wrap up a 25-20 win, sending the match to a fifth set.

UMD grabbed the momentum early in the fifth set to take a 6-1 lead. The Dragons fought back with four straight points to cut the lead to one, thanks to two kills from Palmquist and two block assists from VanWinkle. However, the Bulldogs followed by scoring six of the seven points to take a 12-6 lead.  The Dragons closed within 14-11 after a Palmquist kill, but a kill from Lange wrapped up a 15-11 win for UMD.

The Bulldogs led for the entire first set on their way to a 25-19 win, but the Dragons rebounded in the second set. Trailing 6-5, MSUM went on an 11-2 run to surge into a 16-8 lead. Sullivan had two kills and a block assist during that spurt, while Ness had a service ace. The Dragons were never threatened on their way to a 25-16 win.

The third set proved crucial and went down to the wire, with six ties and three lead changes. The Dragons were down 9-4 at one point but came back to take a 17-15 lead, thanks to an 11-6 run sparked by two kills from Palmquist, and a kill and service ace from senior Heidi Lensing.

Leading 20-19, MSUM scored four of the next five points to push the lead to 24-20. However, UMD scored the final six points of the set to earn a 26-24 win.

The Dragons came back with the fourth-set win to set up the decisive fifth set.

Freshman Abby Wolpern had eight kills and four block assists, while Lensing had six kills and Sullivan five. Freshman Amber Krenske added 11 digs.

MSUM is back in action Tuesday at Northern State for a 7 p.m. match.