ST. PAUL, MINN. –The St. Catherine University volleyball team has hit a bit of slump in recent weeks. The Wildcats are currently on a three-game losing skid, but they have the perfect opportunity to right the ship this weekend. On Saturday, St. Kate's will host a four-team quadrangular on its home court in its final home weekend of the season.
In addition to the Wildcats, three other teams will participate in the quadrangular. Macalester College, Loras College, and the University of Wisconsin-Stout will all make the trek to
Butler Center Gym for matches starting at 10 a.m.
St. Kate's will play in the 12 p.m. and 4 p.m. matches against UW-Stout and Loras, while Macalester will take on the same two teams at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Live stats and
video will be available throughout the quadrangular, and score updates will be made during the Wildcats matches on St. Kate's Twitter account (@stkateswildcats).
Here are the five facts to know before St. Kate's hits the court tomorrow:
3 – Three different conferences will be represented at the quadrangular this weekend. Loras hails from the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC) and UW-Stout is traveling from the neighboring Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC). The Scots and Wildcats both play in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) and therefore will not play each other on Saturday.
1st – St. Kate's still has one of the stingiest defenses in the MIAC. The Wildcats still lead the conference in digs with 1547 total and rank in the top-five in digs/set average. Libero
Shanee Herd (Alexandria, Minn. / Jefferson) continues to lead the conference in both digs and digs/set while
Abby Palmer (Pequot Lakes, Minn. / Pequot Lakes) ranked in the tiop-15 in both categories.
1st – UW-Stout also has a pretty impressive defense. The Blue Devils currently rank No. 1 in the WIAC in digs with 1282 to their name. They also average 17.56 digs per set, according to the WIAC's records.
1st – Loras was picked as the preseason favorite to win the IIAC after an impressive 2015 season. The Duhawks returned 12 letter winners from 2015 at the start of the season, including five of their six starters.
4 – Although they won't play each other on Saturday, the Wildcats and Scots will face off Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the
Butler Center Gym in what will be St. Kate's final home game of the regular season. The match will kick off Wildcat Weekend and honor the Wildcats two seniors, Herd and Palmer.