ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The Bemidji State University volleyball season came to an end Friday evening as the eighth-seeded Beavers fell to 2006 regular season champion and top-seeded Concordia University-St. Paul, 3-0 (30-10, 30-21, 30-14), in the quarterfinal round of the 2006 Northern Sun intercollegiate Conference Tournament at the Gangelhoff Center in St. Paul, Minn.

“We made some improvements this season adding a couple wins and placing a player on the all-conference team, but we came out tonight, in the NSIC Tournament, and didn’t step up the challenge that Concordia-St. Paul presented.” Stated head coach Kim Falkenhagen. “They exploited our errors. They are a good team and just out played us tonight.”

Brittney Burns (Jr., OH, LeSueur, Minn.) paced the BSU attack posting six kills on 27 total attempts. Freshman Anna Leafblad (MB, Coon Rapids, Minn.) added five while Brie Groskreutz (Fr., OH, Reedsburg, Wis.) posted a team-best 10 digs. Jennifer Janckila (So., MB, Appleton, Wis.) contributed a career-high six blocks (3bs-3ba) as the Beavers out blocked the Golden Bears 7.0 to 4.0.

CSP was led by Ashley Olson who collected a match-best 16 kills while hitting an efficient .519 (16-2-27).

Reigning NSIC Player of the Year Jessica Lucia added 12 kills and Megan Graham topped all players with 15 digs.

The Beavers took advantage of early Golden Bear miscues jumping out to an early 3-0 lead.

A 7-0 CSP run would force BSU into a time out, but the head of steam CSP had generated was too much for the Beavers to stop as the hosts continued to roll to a 30-10 game one win.

Bemidji State hung with the top-seeded Golden Bears for a large portion of the second game.

After a Janckila block put BSU up 10-9, CSP would respond with a run of 15-6, scoring six of those on BSU errors.

CSP used four consecutive kills by Raina Hein late in the match to help hold off a late BSU charge to take the game 30-21 and a 2-0 lead in the match.

After two games of the match, BSU has committed 30 unforced error literally spotting CSP a full game.
In game three, CSP quickly took a 4-1 advantage but BSU would use an Alaina Adams (Jr., OH, Halstad, Minn.) kill and a pair of CSP errors to knot the game at 4-4.

The Golden Bears would bounce back netting 11 of the next 12 points including 10 consecutively to go up 15-5. BSU would never recover as CSP held its lead and used a 9-2 run to close out the game, 30-14 and complete the sweep, 3-0.

The CSP win extends its handle on the all-time series to 14-9-1 while it has taken each of the last 12 matches including two straight in NSIC Tournament play.

Bemidji State wraps up its season with an overall record of 7-25 while going 3-15 in NSIC play. Under Falkenhagen’s watch, the team added four wins to is record while piling up a pair of extra conference victories over a 2005 season in which it went 3-31; 1-13. With no seniors on the roster, the Beavers hold the possibility of returning the entire team.

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