THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – The University of Minnesota Morris took one of two matches on Friday during the first day of the Cal Lu Fornia Invitational, hosted by Cal Lutheran University. The Cougars swept Whittier College to start the day before dropping a three-setter to Pomona-Pitzer in their second match. The split of the day's action leaves UMN Morris at 3-7 overall on the season.

Minnesota Morris plays its final non-conference match of the season tomorrow against Cal Lutheran starting at 2 p.m. (CDT).

Minnesota Morris 3, Whittier 0
(25-17, 25-18, 25-23)
The Cougars got off to a flying start on Friday, hitting at a .351 clip as a team and committing only eight attacking errors in comparison to 26 for the Poets. 

The first set was a good encapsulation of that trend with Minnesota Morris laying down 12 kills and committingly just a single error, while Whittier had 12 kills against 10 attack errors. Consecutive kills from Maggie Jones gave the Cougars the lead at 3-1 and the Poets could never pull even from there. The big swing came when UMN Morris scored four straight points to take a 17-10 lead. Three Whittier errors were followed by a McKenzie Newton kill and the Cougars cruised to the win from there.

Trailing 6-3 early in the second set, Minnesota Morris scored seven of the next eight points to go up, 10-7. Anna Molstad had a pair of kills in that stretch while Sydney Eckhoff added an ace. Later on, the Cougars scored six in a row to take a 19-11 edge. Though five straight from Whittier closed the gap to 23-18 and forced a timeout from Minnesota Morris, the Cougars handled things coming out of the break with a kill from Kennedy Geller and a block from Geller and Sydney Petersen to make it 2-0.

The third set was much more of a battle for Minnesota Morris as Whittier led much of the way. The final lead for the Poets came at 22-21, but Jones had two straight kills to give the Cougars the lead and a kill from Laura Wellbrock gave Minnesota Morris a match point at 24-22. Two points later, Jones and Newton combined on a block to finish the match off in a sweep.

Jones ended with a match-high 11 kills and a .588 hitting percentage to go along with seven blocks (one solo). Newton finished with 25 assists and Alyssa Ukestad led the defense with 11 digs from the back row.

Pomona-Pitzer 3, Minnesota Morris 0
(24-26, 15-25, 23-25)
Minnesota Morris battled down to the wire in two out of three sets against Pomona-Pitzer, but the Sagehens came out on top in the end. 

The first set was tied on 12 occasions, including at each point from 19-19 to 24-24 before Pomona-Pitzer was able to break the cycle. The Sagehens took the lead on an attack error and then served an ace to finish it off for a 1-0 lead.

Pomona-Pitzer grabbed control of the second set with six straight points to take a 17-9 lead on the Cougars. Minnesota Morris got no closer than seven points after that as the Sagehens eased to the 2-0 lead in the match.

Minnesota Morris struggled in the early going of the third set and Pomona-Pitzer was able to hold a six-point edge as late as 19-13 before the Cougars battled back. A stretch in which Molstad contributed three kills allowed UMN Morris to take five out of six points and pull to within 20-18. A kill from Newton and a Sagehen attack error made it 24-23 before Pomona-Pitzer was able to finally close it out on its third match point.

Wellbrock paced the Cougar offense with 10 kills in the afternoon session. Newton finished with a double-double of 21 assists and 11 digs. Ukestad finished with a match-high 23 digs and Eckhoff added 15.