WHITEWATER, Wis. - The Minnesota Morris volleyball team faced stiff challenges Friday at the season-opening UW-Whitewater Invitational. Both of their opponents, DePauw and UW-Whitewater, received votes in the AVCA Preseason Top 25 Poll. First-year head coach
Joe Sussenguth was able to guide his Cougars to a sweep over DePauw in the opener, but then fell to the host Warhawks in four sets in the nightcap.
The Cougars went overtime to take the first two sets from DePauw by scores of 26-24 and 30-28. In the opening stanza, UMM raced out to an 8-1 advantage with the help of two
Tori Everson aces and two
Mia Frick kills. DePauw pulled within two at 12-10 before the Cougars rattled off four straight. DePauw staved off two set points to tie it at 24. Kills from
Brenna Tinjum and
Layne Herrmann closed out the opening set in favor the Cougars.
The second set was a back-and-forth affair until the Cougars took a 14-11 edge. The lead extended to five at 21-16 following back-to-back kills from
Rachel Mathias. DePauw fought back again to take a 24-23 lead. Everson and
Morgan Miller blocked a set point attempt. UMM staved off two more set points before closing out the set with three straight points.
The Cougars had a much easier time of it in the third set to close out the sweep with a 25-13 win. Six different Cougars recorded at least four kills with Mathias delivering 10. Herrmann led in both assists (28) and digs (9).
Against UW-Whitewater in the second match, the Cougars dropped the first set, 25-20, before evening the match with a 26-24 win in set two. The Cougars spotted the Warhawks four points in the second set before rattling off 10 of the next 11 points to take a 10-5 lead. The lead grew to 22-13 following a Tinjum kill. UWW followed with a big run of their run to pull within one at 23-22. A Mathias kill and a UWW error knotted the match at 1.
The Warhawks pulled away to take the third set, 25-22, and then closed out the match with a 25-19 win in the fourth.
Mathias led the Cougars again with 11 kills. Herrmann totaled 32 assists and
Alyssa Ukestad tallied 15 digs.
Minnesota Morris (1-1) returns to the UWW courts Saturday for matches with UW-Platteville at noon and Franklin at 2 p.m.
