MORRIS, Minn. - Marissa Ekness has been putting up impressive numbers since she first put on a University of Minnesota Morris volleyball uniform in 2014. Her steady rise in kills per season led her to the brink of setting a program record Monday night.

Ekness came into the season with 1,231 career kills after totaling season kill marks of 237, 491, and 503 through her first three seasons. Through 17 matches of this season, the senior from New Prague High School had amassed 233 kills, giving her a career mark of 1,464. That total left her 26 shy of breaking Erika Bailey's program record of 1,490 kills she set from 1994-97.

For Ekness, to break Bailey's mark Monday night at Augsburg, she was going to need to put up her best numbers of the season. Her season-high game in kills so far in 2017 was a 22-kill effort in the second match of the season against Chicago.

The Cougars won the first two sets before the Auggies won the next two to force a deciding fifth set. Ekness amassed 23 kills through the first four sets, leaving her three away from tying and four away from breaking the record. She got the first two points of the set on kills. Later, with UMM leading 7-6, back-to-back kills tied, then set the new program record with 1,491 career kills. For good measure, she added three more kills to move her career total to 1,494 as the Cougars won the match with a 15-11 score in the final set.

Her 30 kills Monday night were also a career high for a single match and was one shy of the program record.