BEMIDJI, Minn. - The Bemidji State University volleyball team (8-16; 2-7 NSIC) gave Wayne State College all it could handle Friday night at the Bemifji High School Gymnasium. Despite the Beavers having game-point opportunities in each of the first two games, they failed to win either dropping the match 3-0 (34-32, 31-29, 30-20) to the Wildcats.
The BSU offensive attack was improved in the match. After failing to generate a hitting percentage above .200 in its previous eight matches, the Beavers hit .231 while collecting 52 kills, but WSC would put together 53 kills while hitting .252 to edge out the Beavers. BSU was led by freshman Brittney Burns (Henderson, Minn.) and senior Kelly Piper (Eagan, Minn.). Burns collected a match-high 17 kills while Piper let the team in hitting percentage with .370 (14k-4e-27att) while posting 14 kills.
Defensively, BSU outplayed the Wildcats. The Beavers gathered 18 more digs than WSC (72-54) while collecting 6.5 more total blocks (7.5-1). The defensive surge was headed by Kristin Smith (Rockford, Ill.). The senior's 20-dig performance paced the team and was a personal-high for 2004. Smith along with freshman Brittney Carlson (New Prague, Minn.) and senior Heather Haugen (Lanesboro, Minn.) each gathered three block to lead the team.
As both games one and two wound down, BSU served the ball with game point opportunities. In the first game, BSU came back from being down 27-24, to take a 29-28 lead, but would fail to capitalize. The team again served with the game on the line (31-29) but WSC would score four of the next five points on a pair of kills by Michelle Eckhardt to steal the game and take an early 1-0 lead in the match (34-32).
Wayne State struggled as game two got underway. After trading points in the opening moments of the game, BSU went on a 6-0 run to take a 16-10 lead and force WSC into calling its first timeout. The Wildcats continued to sputter as BSU would again force the team to take a timeout when BSU's Burns connected on a two consecutive kills to put BSU up 19-15. WSC would respond closing the game to 19-18 before BSU would call a timeout of its own. The teams would remain neck-and-neck until the Beavers went out in front 29-27 with a game-two win in their sight. But the Wildcats would battle back to take the next four points on a pair of kills by Ashley Vogt and back-to-back services aces by Julie Jacobsen, to win the game (31-29) and go up 2-0 in the match.
Game three was a struggle for BSU. After hitting .250 and .400 in games one and two, BSU hit a meager .026 in game three.
After stumbling out of the gates of the third game BSU scored four consecutive points to take an early 11-9 lead. But WSC would score seven of the next nine points capitalizing on four BSU errors, a service error and a receiving error to go up 16-12. From that point, BSU was never able to get back on track as the Wildcats completed the sweep with a 30-20 game three win.
Wayne State was led by Michele Eckhardt who hit a match-high .455 while collecting a team-high 13 kills. Julie Jacobsen collected 38 assists while Laura Dolezal paced the team with 12 digs.
The loss drops BSU to 8-16 overall and 2-7 in Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference play. The Beavers will wrap up their home slate with a 3:00 p.m. match versus NSIC foe Southwest Minnesota State Saturday. The match will be proceeded by a special ceremony to honor of parents of this year's players as well as the four seniors (Engman, Piper, Haugen and Smith) who will be playing their last match at home.
