@UNCBearsVB Grinds Out Five Set Win Over North Dakota

Saturday, October 31

Grand Forks, N.D.

10:00 am

University of Northern Colorado

10-15, 6-6

North Dakota

17-12, 5-7

Team	1	2	3	4	5	Final F
Northern Colorado	20	25	25	23	15	3
North Dakota	25	19	23	25	8	2

Photo by: Breelyn Bowe

10/31/2015 1:43:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

UNC didn't play its best volleyball, but earned a five set win Saturday morning

By: Ryan Pfeifer, UNCBears.com

GRAND FORKS, N.D. – The Northern Colorado volleyball team earned its first road victory of the season Saturday morning with a five set victory over North Dakota (20-25, 25-19, 25-23, 23-25, 15-8). The win was the second of the season for the Bears against UND and improved their all-time record against them to 35-4.

The Bears took the second and third set after dropping the first, and used a hot start winning the first four points of the fifth set to earn the victory.

"This was a good hard fought win for us," head coach Lyndsey Oates said. "This was a good match to put in our tool belt, knowing we can win a tough match on the road."

Similar to the first match between the two teams this season, UNC out-hit (.265-.176), out-dug (86-81) and out-blocked (12.0-6.0) UND. Despite leading UND in those three categories, UNC's nine service errors hurt them at times.

"It wasn't pretty and we didn't play our best at times," Oates said. "We tried to give the match away on service errors and non-aggressive serving. Despite that I thought we played hard enough to win and it showed."

Northern Colorado's offense was paced by the inside-outside combo of middle blocker Alex Kloehn (12 kills) and outside hitters Kendra Cunningham (17 kills) and Timarie Nymeyer (17 Kills). Kortney Lockey also finished with double digit kills adding in 10.

Cunningham added in 17 digs to go with her kills in the match for her second straight double-double. With her 10th dig in the match today she became the seventh Bear to ever reach the 1,000 career kills and 1,000 career digs mark.

Meagan Garcia and Ashley Guthrie also turned in big dig numbers during the match with 34 and 13 digs, respectively. The 34 digs are a new career high for Garcia, breaking the previous high of 30 she set against Delaware earlier this season.

Guthrie continued her string of double-doubles extending the streak to four, by adding in a new career high 60 assist to go with the 13 digs. Her previous career high was 59 which came against Sacramento State in 2013.

At the net middle blocker Emily O'Neil led the team with six total blocks, while teammate Kloehn added in four, including two big solo blocks.

Each set win came in a different way for the Bears. In the 25-19 second set victory UNC got out to an early 7-3 lead, but UND would climb its way back in it, before UNC went on a late 3-0 run to extend their lead to 21-15 and close out the set.

It was the opposite story in the third set, when North Dakota came storming out of the gates leading the Bears 6-1. UNC would counter with a 7-3 run of their own to even the set at nine. From that point until the score reached 21-21 the teams traded point for point, leading to 14 ties during it. A mini 2-0 spurt by UNC was all the team needed to secure the 25-23 win and go up two sets to one.

After UND took the fourth set the Bears responded well winning the first four points of the fifth set and never looking back. During the final set UNC would never relinquish the lead, allowing UND to only get as close as 10-7, before finishing off the match and earning the victory.

"With four matches left I think this team is headed in the right direction going towards the Big Sky Tournament," said Oates.

The team stays on the road for their final two road regular season matches of the year starting on Friday at Montana at 7:00 p.m.