Behind Skains’ big swings, Bulldogs top Doane for first time since 2007

CRETE, Neb. – Doane may have entered Wednesday night’s match with an overall record of 7-9, but third-year Concordia University volleyball head coach Scott Mattera knew it would take a gritty road performance to knock off a longtime nemesis. Despite the Tigers’ insistence on limiting the Bulldogs’ talented middles, Concordia topped its rival to the southeast on Wednesday, marking the first win over Doane since 2007.

The Bulldogs, who continue to receive votes in the NAIA national rankings, moved to 9-4 overall and 1-1 in GPAC play with the 25-20, 13-25, 26-24, 25-22, win in Crete.

“Any road win in the GPAC is a great win,” Mattera said. “We know the history with Doane. We’re 9-4 and we’ve got another tough match on Saturday. That’s the way we’re looking at it. I know that sounds cliché – one match at a time – but that’s where we need to be right now.”

The Bulldogs exercised some demons despite Doane’s defensive strategy that contained Concordia’s trio of middles that includes senior Mariah Schamp, sophomore Taylor Workman and freshman Annie Friesen. With the Tigers cheating towards the middle, sophomore right side Tiegen Skains came through with a career high 10 kills, including several that put away important momentum-building points.

“A lot of it was Alayna (Kavanaugh) did a good job of distributing the ball amongst all our hitters,” Skains said. “The middles did a great job of keeping the blockers there so Claire (White) and I could hit around them. It was a lot of good sets and keeping the blockers away from us so that we could get some kills.”

There were struggles during the second set when the Tigers dominated by taking it 25-13. At one point in the second game, White rocked three-consecutive attacks out of bounds. She recovered in impressive fashion and tied a match high with 16 kills.

Nothing was easy on Wednesday, but Skains and White oftentimes came through when it was needed most. With the trifecta of Schamp, Workman and Friesen held to a combined 11 kills, others had to rise to the occasion.

“Clearly they knew about our middles,” Mattera said. “If you watch video you know how great our middles are and how dominating they can be. Frankly (Doane) stacked up against them pretty hard. They brought their left side blocker in quite a ways. They did what we call a ‘pinch.’ So our middles didn’t have as many opportunities as in some other matches.

“Some other girls stepped up. You saw some huge kills from Tiegen. She had an awesome match on the right side and really took advantage.”

Concordia played its cleanest volleyball in the first and fourth sets, hitting .310 in both games. The Bulldogs ended up with a slight edge on the attack, .172 to .162. Mattera’s club had to sweat out a third set in which it appeared to have won 25-23 on a Skains’ kill, but a net violation gave Doane a point and extended the set.

Other leaders for Concordia on Wednesday were Kavanaugh with 36 assists and senior Carli Smith with her 21 digs. Fellow senior Jami Nekoliczak added 13 digs of her own. Workman posted six kills.

The Tigers, who have dropped their first two conference matches to Hastings and Concordia, got 16 kills from Shelbi Mlynczak.

Wednesday’s win was simply part of the growing process for a program that is trending upward.

“We came in with the mindset of – we haven’t proven anything yet,” Skains said. “We talked about beating teams like Midland and Doane, but we hadn’t proven anything yet. This year it’s a lot about proving ourselves. Last year was a lot of building.”

The Bulldogs look to extend their current eight-match home win streak when they return to Walz Arena on Saturday to host Mount Marty (4-7, 0-1 GPAC) at 11 a.m. (junior varsity at 9:30 a.m.). Concordia has won each of the last six meetings with the Lancers.