HASTINGS, Neb. – Third-year head coach Scott Mattera’s Bulldogs completed a solid weekend at the Hastings College Classic by splitting a pair of matches on Saturday. A day after upsetting No. 14 Oklahoma Baptist University, Concordia finished at 3-1 on the weekend by taking care of Friends University (Kan.) (25-27, 25-21, 25-21, 25-19) prior to a loss to the University of Montana Western, 25-19, 29-27, 25-23.
The nightcap defeat snapped a four-match win streak. The Bulldogs are now 6-3 overall.
In the win over Friends to begin the day, three different Bulldogs floored 10 or more kills as sophomore setter Alayna Kavanaugh (53 assists) distributed the ball around to the team’s bevy of hitters. Sophomore Paige Getz paced Concordia with 14 kills (.333 hitting percentage) followed by 12 from junior Claire White and 10 from sophomore Taylor Workman.
“Paige had a really nice match,” Mattera said. “Our middles were very efficient again with Taylor and Schamp both hitting .471. After struggling early on, Alayna really came on with better decisions and execution and racked up a huge number of assists. When you look at her distribution, she really spread it around after that first game and that opened everything up.”
Concordia shook off a close defeat in the first set against a Falcons bunch that went 26-13 overall last season. Friends got a strong effort at the net from Morgan Riley, who piled up eight blocks. It was not enough for the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference member to overcome an attack percentage disadvantage of .213 to .158.
“We survived a scare,” Mattera said. “Friends is a really well coached team that plays hard and does some really awkward things offensively that we struggled to control. We finally got it figured out at the end of the third game and really put the fourth away comfortably.”
In a battle of Bulldogs, Montana Western got the upper hand behind 13 kills from Emily Erickson, who hit .423. Setter Paige Latimer dished out 42 assists for an attack that hit .321 compared to a .220 clip for Concordia.
“The story on this one is quite simple – they played a great match and we did not,” Mattera said. “That is a very good team. They play extremely fast and they play extremely hard. We just couldn’t find the gas to keep up with them and they were fired up to play us. We hit .220 which is good enough to win, but we gave up .321. We aren’t going to win a lot doing that. Our block had a very hard time getting lined up and up off the floor in time.”
Mattera’s squad was led in its second match by the nine kills of Getz. Freshman Annie Friesen did some good things, putting up four kills and three total blocks. Mariah Schamp (eight kills), Taylor Workman (seven kills) and Friesen all hit .375 or better from the middle.
Mattera believes the final match of the Hastings Classic provided another lesson for his still developing squad.
“They are a good team that played great and we’re a good team that didn’t play great,” Mattera said. “We will learn from it and get better.”
The Bulldogs now look forward to the start of conference play with seventh-ranked Midland (9-3) coming up on Wednesday (Sept. 10). The 2013 GPAC tournament champion Warriors will host the JV/varsity doubleheader. First serve in the varsity contest is slated for 7:30 p.m.
