Concordia-St. Paul Advances to NCAA Central Region Title Match
MARSHALL, Minn. – Three-time defending NCAA national champion Concordia University-St. Paul, the No. 2 seed, advanced to the championship match of the Central Region Tournament on Friday night with a 3-1 (19-25, 25-14, 25-22, 25-14) victory over No. 6 seed Wayne State.
The Golden Bears will be making their eighth straight region championship match appearance and have won five region titles. CU, ranked No. 1 in the country, won its 18th straight match tonight and haven’t loss since Sept. 28 versus Southwest Minnesota State.
CU hit .386 as a team tonight with Kara Pioske leading the way with 12 kills and a .524 hitting percentage. Emily Palkert added a math-high 17 kills, while Cassie Haag recorded 13 kills. Amanda Konetchy finished with 52 set assists and eight digs.
Metro State, which ends its season with a 25-7 record, was paced by Bri Morley with 13 kills, while Darcy Schwartzman finished with 44 assists. MSCD has now appeared in 18 NCAA tournaments and is now 10-18 all-time.
Concordia will play the region championship tomorrow night at 7 p.m. versus either No. 1 seed Southwest Minnesota State or No. 4 seed Nebraska-Kearney.
NOTES & QUOTES
Metro State
Head Coach Debbie Hendricks’ thoughts following the loss against Concordia-St. Paul
“I just can’t say enough about how hard I thought our team fought tonight, we did a lot of things exceptional well tonight, and Concordia just did them a little bit better. We knew going into tonight that if we let (Concordia - St. Paul) be in system that they just have too many weapons. Our defense was fantastic, kept a lot of rallies going but we just didn’t win enough of the long rallies and we didn’t break them down and serve receive enough. (Concordia – St. Paul) just played a fantastic match.”
Head Coach Debbie Hendricks on why Concordia – St. Paul is such a hard team to beat
“The biggest thing is a lot of balls that would normally be down against most opponents and maybe against a few opponents, they’re up and in system against Concordia and it’s a little bit demoralizing to take huge swings and (Concordia – St. Paul) is just bringing the ball back in system; and that has been their trademark for quite a while now. We literally talked about before the match, the only way to beat this team is to disadvantage them and we did that at times, we had them back on their heels at times but just not enough.”
Ngoc Phan on what Concordia St. Paul did to make things difficult
“(Concordia – St. Paul) were passing very well most of the night and were in system pretty much all night and were firing on all cylinders as well and that makes defense a lot harder to read.”
Head Coach Debbie Hendricks on the balance that Concordia – St. Paul has and the comparison of Concordia – St. Paul and Metro State
“I think both teams have enough weapons to move the ball around to a lot people and have different people have big nights. (Concordia – St. Paul) is very balanced so if you go after one or two players you are going to see a couple of others pop up and hurt you and so I think our team has the ability to be that way and at times tonight we were, again (Concordia – St. Paul) was just a little bit better than we were.”
Head Coach Debbie Hendricks on what went well in the first set for Metro State
“We served really tough and I think (Concordia – St. Paul) was out of system quite a bit and they gave us 10 unforced errors and I told the team between game 1 and 2 that’s the last game where you’ll see (Concordia – St. Paul) give you that many unforced errors.”
Lisa Jones on the feeling of coming out on the court after momentum swung to Concordia – St. Paul after set 3
“We realized we were still in the match and wanted to take one step at a time because that’s all you can do.”
Debbie Hendricks on what went wrong late in the 3rd set.
“We just didn’t make the plays we needed to make. We had a few opportunities and we didn’t execute. If you don’t execute on your opportunities against Concordia you are probably not going to get another one. So that’s the bottom line.”
Lisa Jones reflecting on her career at Metro State
“I kinda started out like the little freshman that was on the floor and took a couple steps and realized I needed to step up and I think a couple of the other girls helped me do it and it’s been a great journey and it has taught me a lot. It’s sad to see it go but I know there is more in life…I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Concordia - St. Paul
Head Coach Brady Starkey’s thoughts following the victory over Metro State
“(Metro State) is a really strong team and they have a lot of their kids back next year and so they are going to be even more tough next year so our region doesn’t get any easier. Congrats to (Metro State) they had a great season. Tonight was kind of like last night where a team came out on fire against us and there wasn’t really much we could do about it. We just weathered the storm and hopefully we can get our offense going for the next three games and we did that. It was more of a battle tonight but I was proud of how well our girls fought.”
Megan Carlson on the rally in the 4th set to finish the match
“We talked about we needed to be more disciplined on our blocks and being in the back row, I know that just seeing the block in front of me, digging around it is a lot easier and a lot more helpful when we are more disciplined. We also knew we needed to step it up because we knew that (Metro State) was a good team.”
Kara Pioske on her personal success throughout the match
“Amanda (Konetchy) actually helped me out tonight she was able to set me up with a lot of one on ones, which makes it a lot easier for me to get a kill rather than have two blockers in front of me and then the people behind me and helped me out from the back row too.”
Head Coach Brady Starkey on his team’s history of playoff success
“I think we have some really talented kids for one, and then some really talented kids that work really hard. They put in the effort throughout the entire year and work their butts off to get to this point so I think it is pretty much just a hats off to what their work ethic is like.”
Cassie Haag on level of play changes from regular season to postseason
“I think that, especially defensively, the level of play is a lot higher, rallies are longer, balls that you would hit maybe in a regular season match that you would think would hit the floor get dug up and you have to always be ready to keep working hard and mostly focus on out working the other team. That is the biggest thing here because everyone is at such a high level of play here.”
