White reaches 1,000 career kills in loss against No. 8 Dordt
SEWARD, Neb. – Senior Claire White grabbed her 1,000th career kill in a gritted out battle with Dordt College Saturday, Oct. 31. The No. 8 Defenders edged the No. 16 Bulldogs, 3-0 (25-23, 25-17, 25-23) on Senior Night inside Walz Arena.
The Bulldogs drop to 23-7 (11-4 GPAC) while the Defenders improve to 22-4 (13-2 GPAC).
Said head coach Scott Mattera, “That’s really good volleyball, if anyone wants to see what NAIA volleyball is all about at the top level, that’s all that was. Great job by them, great job by us, they came out on top.”
White recorded four kills in her milestone night and one service ace. Leading the Bulldogs in kills was Tiegen Skains who posted 12 kills and hit .292 on the match. Annie Friesen hit a team high .333 and owned eight kills while Paige Getz killed the ball seven times.
Alayna Kavanaugh dished out 33 assists. Seniors Kendra Dinkel and Libby Zagel eached notched up three service aces. Defensively, libero Jocelyn Garcia recorded a game-high 13 digs.
As a team, the Bulldogs recorded seven blocks to the Defenders’ six and also served up more aces than Dordt (5-3). Concordia hit .147 on the match and posted up 36 total kills.
The first and third sets were back and forth battles with several long rallies. CUNE outhit Dordt .156 to .139 in the first set but was ultimately defeated by two. The third set saw Concordia’s best hitting average of .256 when White notched kill number 1,000.
The second set was a different story as the Bulldogs were defeated by a bigger margin than two points, 17-25. The middle set was plagued with attack errors for Concordia.
“We’ll see about seeding and whatnot when we get to that, but honestly we’re just worried about getting better,” Mattera noted. “We’ve got a lot left to go. We have a good match on Wednesday and then we have to take it strong into the GPAC Tournament.”
Next up for the No. 16 Concordia volleyball team is a road trip to Nebraska Wesleyan University. The Bulldogs’ last regular season game will start at 7:30 p.m.
