No. 18 Warriors Finish Weekend with Sweep

FREMONT, Neb. – No. 18-ranked Midland University was back on the court inside the Wikert Event Center on Saturday afternoon as it took on Briar Cliff University in a Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) match. The Warriors, who won a marathon five-set match the night before, needed only three as they swept past the Chargers (25-17, 25-13, 25-20).

In the opening set, Midland took the first two points and never looked back. They quickly jumped out to a 10-4 lead, prompting a BCU timeout. Shortly after the stoppage, the Chargers responded with a five-point run that brought them to within a point, 14-13, which warranted a timeout from the home side.

Following the huddle, the Warriors went on an 11-4 run to close out the set, 25-17. The offensive attack was even with six players earning a kill. Brooklynn Snyder and Lauren Jones led the way with four each while Jacki Apel had three to go along with three block assists.

Briar Cliff stayed close at the start of the second set, holding a lead at 6-5 after ties at each step along the way. Midland knotted the set at six to start a 7-1 run that put it in the driver's seat. During that rally, the match was halted for nearly five minutes as BCU challenged a scoring issue.

After things were officially corrected with the aid of the statistician, the Warriors sent on a long rally of seven straight points, bringing their lead to 19-8. The Chargers were unable to get anything more than a three-point run the rest of the way as they fell, 15-13.

Snyder and Jones paced the attack once more with four kills each. Midland's service also added three points with a pair of aces from Brena Mackling and one from Delanie Vallinch.

Needing to win to keep the match going, Briar Cliff started the third set with back-to-back points and worked its way to a 7-4 lead. After that, Midland used a 9-1 run to seize control once more. BCU was able to pull even three times and took a brief lead at 20-19 which forced a timeout from Midland. The quick timeout to refocus worked for the Warriors as they closed out the set and the match with a six-point rally, winning 25-20.

Apel and Snyder led the way with four kills each in the third set while the Warriors serving yielded five aces. Stella Kuehl, Emmalee Sheppard, and Vallinch all had one while Kailyn Scott served up a pair.

For the match, Midland hit .235 on the attack with 38 kills and only 14 errors. Briar Cliff was limited to a .072 mark with 27 kills and 19 errors.

Brooklynn Snyder had a match-best 12 kills while hitting .357. Jacki Apel and Lauren Jones were the next two highest hitters with 9 kills each. Coordinating the attack were Stella Kuehl and Brena Mackling. Kuehl had 15 assists while Mackling had 19.

Defensively, the Warriors had six blocks on the day at the net. Apel had a hand in four while Lauren Jones assisted on three. Delanie Vallinch had a match-high 25 digs in the back row. Kailyn Scott added 9 while Delainey Cast picked up 7 digs on the day.

The serving was excellent for Midland as it tied a season-best with 9 aces. Scott had three while Vallinch and Mackling each picked up a pair.

"I was really proud of the way our team handled things today because you don't expect that when you show up to the gym, one of your best players is going to be sick and not able to go," commented head coach Paul Giesselmann after the match. "Good teams adapt to the situation. It doesn't matter what that situation might be. I thought the team did a lot of good things.

"I was really pleased with our serving today. We had a game plan coming in and I thought the team did an excellent job executing it. We got their setter off the net a lot and they weren't able to run their offense how they wanted. That sets up our block and back row and I thought our defense played really well today."

Midland (12-8, 8-2 GPAC) will have a pair of road matches next week starting with a trip to Yankton, South Dakota to face Mount Marty (12-9, 4-6 GPAC) on Wednesday. Match time is slated for 7:30 p.m. on October 16 inside Cimpl Arena.