Courtesy of Midland Athletics
NORTH SIOUX CITY, S.D. – Play continued at the Labor Day Classic hosted by CSM and United Sports Academy on Saturday. On the final day of the event featuring some of the best volleyball teams in the NAIA, No. 9-ranked Midland University fell in five sets to (RV) Rocky Mountain College and No. 6-ranked Park University.
Rocky Mountain 3, Midland 2 (25-23, 10-25, 25-21, 16-25, 15-11)
The Battlin’ Bears, who went 1-1 on the opening day of the classic, took the opening set despite being outhit by the Warriors (.170 to .146). RMC took advantage of four service errors by Midland while registering a back-to-back ace serves at a key point in the set to pull within two, 17-19. They used a 5-0 run after a Midland timeout to take control and won the opener, 25-23.
Midland jumped out with a 4-0 run to start the second and kept their opponents in check. RMC was only able to muster consecutive points once in the set. Behind a balanced attack that saw six players get multiple kills, the Warriors hit .467 on the attack while holding the Bears sub-zero at -.059. Jacki Apel and Lauren Williams both had four floorings in the set as MU won 25-10.
The third set was one of the most evenly played in the match. During the frame, there were ties at each point from 1-1 to 12-12. A three-point swing for the Bears gave them an edge but Midland battled back to knot the score at 16-16. From there, there were another four ties before Rocky closed out the set with a 6-1 run to win 25-21.
A solid 5-0 run in the early stages of set four by Midland allowed them to force a fifth set. Tied at 11-11, the Warriors saw kills from Apel and Addy Mosier ahead of three-straight ace serves by Delanie Vallinch to go up 16-11. RMC would break the run but never recovered as Midland went on to win 25-16. Abbey Ringler and Williams each had four kills in the set as the Warriors hit .351 on the attack.
In the race to 15 of the fifth set, Midland took the first two points with a solo block and a kill by Ringler. Rocky rebounded with three straight as they started a 9-4 run through flipping of sides.
After a timeout by Midland, the lead grew to 12-7 in favor of RMC before a late surge by the Warriors. Four consecutive points pulled them within one but the Bears were able to close out the match with a kill, an ace, and a defensive block to win 15-11.
For the match, Williams and Ringler paced the attack with 16 kills each. Cortlyn Schaefer joined them in double digits with 11 as the team hit a combined .282 on the attack. Brielle Power had 36 set assists while Brena Mackling had 27 as the duo controlled the offense.
Vallinch was masterful at the service line with four aces. As a team, Midland finished with seven, its most since the opening match of the year when they had eight.
Defensively, the Warriors had seven blocks at the net. Getting a piece on three of them were Lauryn Samuelson (3 assists) and Ringler (2 solo, 1 assist). Vallinch led the back-row defense with 21 digs. Saige Craven had 13 digs while Kailyn Scott finished one shy of a dozen with 11.
Park 3, Midland 2 (25-23, 11-25, 18-25, 25-22, 15-7)
In what has been starting to become an annual occurrence, Park and Midland met up for a top-ten showdown at the Labor Day Classic. During the start of the 2021 season, the Warriors won in four sets and then they followed that up with a thrilling five-set win a season ago. This year saw another classic battle between the perennial national championship threats.
All eyes were on Court 2 inside the United Sports Academy just past the one-o’clock hour as the teams took the floor.
The Pirates were able to get a leg up as they took an early lead in the first set, 5-1. They held off several runs by the Warriors, never allowing them to pull even. Trailing by seven, 20-13, MU went on an 11-4 run to get within a point as the match drew toward a close. Sitting on set point for a third time, Park was able to close it out 25-23 behind a kill.
Midland would use what it learned during that run in the early parts of the second as they jumped out in front 8-4. The lead continued to grow with the Warriors holding a commanding 20-9 lead. A pair of big blocks closed out the set. First, it was a solo stop by Lauryn Samuelson to make it 23-10 and then Abbey Ringler and Cortlyn Schaefer teamed up on the final point, sealing the 25-11 win.
The Warriors continued to make plays in the third, taking an 8-3 lead through the early stages. Park tried to work its way back but a 5-0 run in the middle put Midland in control, 19-11. They would withstand a final push by the Pirates before closing out set three. Jacki Apel had a solo block to put them on set point and then Samuelson slammed home a kill to close it out, 25-18.
Adjustments were made in the Pirates’ huddle during the three-minute break. The teams were battling in the set with eight ties. The final came during an impressive and match-altering 9-1 run by Park. After pulling even at 17-17, they scored the next four points and held off any chance of a Midland comeback. They won the fourth 25-22 to force a deciding fifth set to 15.
Things started slow for Midland in the fifth as Park won five of the first six points. The Warriors went on a micro run of three, forcing a timeout just before the turn by the Pirate. After the huddle, Park scored four in a row to make it 9-4. They used their second timeout after a two-point swing by MU and then closed out the set and the match on a 6-1 run.
In the final match of the weekend, Midland hit just .092 on the attack. They hovered around the .100 mark up until a sub-zero attack of -.167 in the fifth (2 kills and 5 errors). Park finished with a hitting percentage of .099. They were saddled by poor plans of attack in the second (-.139) and third (-.030) sets.
A pair of Warriors reach double-digit kills. Samuelson had 10 kills while Lauren Williams led the way with 13. The next highest on the team were Schaefer and Ringler with seven each. Directing the attack were Brielle Power and Brena Mackling with 28 and 13 set assists, respectively.
Midland finished with 16 blocks as a team. Samuelson had five assists along with two solo blocks while Schaefer had seven assists. Ringler was the most active at the net with a hand on nine blocks.
Jessie Moss and Power each had a pair of perfect serves as the Warriors aced the Pirates six times as a team.
Saige Craven had a big match in the back row with 17 digs while Kailyn Scott dug up 11. Leading the way was Delanie Vallinch with 18 digs from her libero position.
“We were really disappointed with the outcome today,” commented head coach Paul Giesselmann. “We had stretches of really good volleyball and unfortunately stretches of mistakes too, both mentally and physically. We just need to keep working on it and get better. Hopefully, we’re able to learn a lot from these matches.”
Midland (5-4, 1-0 GPAC) will turn its focus to play within the Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) now. They’ll be on the road this upcoming Wednesday at No. 2 Concordia (8-0, 1-0 GPAC). The match between the NAIA Top 10 teams will get underway at 7:30 p.m. inside Friedrich Arena on September 6 in Seward, Nebraska.
