St. Paul, Minn. (Gangelhoff Center) - The top-seeded #1 Concordia-St. Paul (27-4) claimed their fourth NSIC Tournament title with a four set win over sixth-seeded #21 Winona State (20-10) at the Gangelhoff Center on Sunday afternoon.
The Golden Bears picked up their first title since they won three in a row from 2004 to 2006. The win also gives Concordia the season sweep of both the NSIC regular season and tournament titles for the fourth time in program history. Both their four tournament titles and 12 regular season titles are the most by any program in the NSIC. This season's run improves CSP's record in NSIC Championship matches to 4-2 and moves their all-time mark in the tournament to 18-4.
Concordia's
Riley Hanson and
Emma Lange headlined the All-Tournament Team as they were joined by Winona State's McKenna Larsen and Maria Fruechte. Southwest Minnesota State's Abbey Thissen and Minnesota Duluth's Mariah Scharf were also named to the team.
The duo of
Emma Lange and
Anna Pioske was dynamic as the two of them both contributed a match-high 20 kills on the day. The 20 kills represented a new career high for Pioske while it was just two short of Lange's career best. Lange hit an incredible .679 to set a new career high as she committed only one error. Pioske also added 10 digs to give her four double-doubles in the past six matches.
Riley Hanson joined those two in double figures with 14 kills while
Kasey Williams added a massive double-double with 56 assists and 17 digs.
Taylor Dordan and
Hope Schiller both put up double figures digs as Dordan had 16 and Schiller had 12.
Maria Fruechte led the Warriors with 15 kills and Taylor Goar chipped in 11 in the loss. McKenna Larsen was solid from the setter position as she finished with 44 assists, eight kills and seven digs.
Concordia hit .353 as a team as the offense was really clicking and the Golden Bears held the Warriors to .223 in the match. CSP also had six service aces while WSU had four.
The Golden Bears took control early in the first set as they erased a 2-1 deficit with an impressive 7-0 run to take a comfortable 8-2 lead. Concordia maintained a steady cushion for the rest of the set as the closest that WSU would get was within three at 11-8. The lead eventually grew as large as eight at 24-16 following four straight in favor of CSP before they closed out the opening set 25-19.
CSP quickly went up 3-0 in the second before the two teams pulled even for much of the early going. The Warriors tied it up seven times by 11-11 but were unable to get over the hump and take the lead. The Golden Bears rattled off four of the next five as they slowly began pulling away. They got the lead up to five at 24-19 before winning the set by that margin at 25-20 to take a commanding 2-0 lead in the match.
The Warriors battled back in the third as they erased a 7-6 Golden Bear lead with six straight points. Concordia managed to close the gap back to one with a run of their own but another surge of five in a row for WSU extended their lead to the largest of the set at 21-14. The Golden Bears showed some resilience as they pulled within two at 23-21, but Winona State grabbed the final to points to bring the match to a fourth set.
Winona State fought hard to take an early lead again in the fourth set but the Golden Bears responded with a big 5-0 run to take a 9-5 lead and steal the momentum. Concordia rode the wave as they grew the lead much of the rest of the set. WSU remained within five at 15-10 before CSP ran away with it as they took 10 of the final 13 points to win the title with a 25-13 set win in the fourth.
Concordia-St. Paul will be joined by Southwestern Oklahoma State from the GAC and Central Missouri from the MIAA as automatic qualifiers from the NCAA Central Region. The complete NCAA championship bracket will be announced on Monday, November 23 via a webcast selection show on
www.NCAA.com at 6:30 p.m. (CT). The regional tournament will be played December 3-5 at a regional campus. The 2015 NCAA Elite 8 will take place Dec. 10-12 at Bob Martinez Athletics Center in Tampa, Florida.