@UNCBearsVB Middles Lead Team to Saturday Sweep

Saturday, September 3

Houston, TX

11:00 am

University of Northern Colorado

2-3

Houston Baptist

3-4

Northern Colorado

HBU

Photo by: Dean Popejoy

9/3/2016 8:18:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score 1 Box Score 2

UNC's middle blockers played well as UNC goes 2-0 Saturday

By: Ryan Pfeifer, UNCBears.com

HOUSTON, Texas – Northern Colorado volleyball closed out its weekend on the road with a pair of wins Saturday in the Barcelona Labor Day Classic. UNC earned a 3-1 (43-45, 25-19, 25-21, 25-18) win over host Houston Baptist in the morning, and then swept Penn (25-18, 25-15, 25-17).

Game 1 vs Houston Baptist

How it Happened
The Bears and Huskies opened their match Saturday morning with a marathon first set. In the longest rally in school history, UNC fell to HBU 45-43. In the set, Kortney Lockey recorded a remarkable 11 kills, while Ashley Guthrie had 20 assists and Makenna Meier had 11 digs.

Following the crazy first set, UNC recovered to even the match at the break. The key stretch for the Bears during the set came when they outscored the Huskies 10-4 after being tied at 15. The duo of Lockey and Alex Kloehn scored half the points during the run, all on kills.

The third set was another close battle for Northern Colorado and Houston Baptist, with UNC taking advantage of a 6-2 run in the middle of the set.

The Bears closed out the match with a 25-18 win in the fourth set. The team jumped out to the lead early on a 5-0 run to go up 9-4 on three attack errors by HBU and a service ace from Lockey. The match ended on Alex Kloehn's 17th kill of the day, a new career-high for her.

Game Changer
Middle Blocker Alex Kloehn broke out of a slump Saturday morning with a career high 17 kills. Over the four sets she averaged 4.25 kills a set. It was not just her offense that made an impact in the Bears win, but also her play at the net. She finished the match with six total blocks, three solo blocks and three block assists, one shy of her career-high.

Notables
- A big key to UNC's victory was its tough serving. The team had 13 aces overall in the match. Three Bears finished with three aces, in Lockey, Meier and Kayla Uyemura. It tied Meier's career high and is a new one for Uyemura.
- Northern Colorado's back line was all over the floor against HBU, as the team had 98 digs in the four sets. Five different players had 10 or more digs, led by Meier's career high tying 25. Taylor Els (15) and Uyemura (16) both tied career-highs.
- The Bears attack played well, hitting .272 for the match including an error free fourth set when they hit .429. Three UNC players finished with double figure kills in Lockey (20), Kloehn (17) and Natalya King (10).

Quotables
Coach Oates
"I thought this was a good match for us, a good learning match. We grew a lot during it and trusted Alex to come back for us. She started slow, but once she started to get going, she led us the rest of the way. We served very aggressive and that made for a lot of serving errors, but I am glad we stayed aggressive and that was a big part of the match for us. I challenged the team to be aggressive serving and they took that challenge. Finally, our blocking was significantly better than last night. The things that we challenged the team with after last night they came back and responded well today, so that was a good sign of growth today."

Game 2 vs Penn

How it Happened
Northern Colorado opened the match against Penn with a flurry on offense. UNC hit .552 in the set, and was led by its middle blockers in Kloehn and King. They combined for eight kills and only one error on 14 swings.
While the Bears were hot swinging, the Quakers struggled, only hitting .160 in the set.

In the second set, Northern Colorado got out to a quick start leading 10-4 after the first 14 points. They never looked back after the strong start to take the 2-0 lead with a 25-15 win. Once again UNC's offense played well, hitting .438. It was also once again King and Kloehn with nine combined kills. Kloehn hit a perfect 1.000 in the set.

The Bears completed the sweep with a 25-17 third set win. While the team's offense slowed down in the set compared to the first and second, UNC's defense continued to play well once again holding the Quakers under .200 hitting.

Game Changer(s)
Northern Colorado's middle blockers Alex Kloehn and Natalya King had a huge match offensively. Kloehn followed up her 17 kill match against HBU with another 12 against Penn, hitting .474 for the match. King set a career high with 12 kills herself on a .421 attack percentage.

Noteables
- The right arm of Kortney Lockey took a break for the Bears in the match, with only 10 swings, but she connected on six of them for a .600 hitting percentage.
- UNC had his best offensive match of the 2016 season hitting .402 as a team.
- The match was the first sweep of the season for Northern Colorado.

Quotables
Coach Oates
"Our middles played very well for us tonight that was a good match up for us. Natalya and Alex really came through for us as we gave us a lot of attempts. We were also able to play some different people in the match and give us some different looks. Overall it was a good way to end the tournament."

Next Up
Northern Colorado will return home for one match on Wednesday against Denver. The Bears and Pioneers square off at 7 pm.