ST. BONEFICIUS, MINN. – The St. Catherine University volleyball team hit a bit of a rough patch in the past two weeks. The Wildcats battled in every single one of their past six matches, but the team was unable to come away with a win. That all changed Friday night, as St. Kate's snapped its six-match losing streak with a dominant 3-0 (25-11, 25-20, 25-20) win over Crown College.
The Wildcats overpowered the Storm in every facet of the game, setting the tone early with a 25-11 win in the first set. After falling behind 2-0, St. Kate's won six straight points, highlighted by three kills from
Kelly Breuer (St. Paul, Minn. / St. Croix Lutheran) to take a 6-2 lead in the early stages of the set. The Wildcats held that lead and never looked back, eventually winning 25-11.
It looked like St. Kate's was going to roll to an easy victory at the start of the second set.
Meagan Schwarzrock (Hutchinson, Minn. / Hutchinson) guided the Wildcats to a 4-0 lead with strong serving and smart decisions as the team's starting setter. The Storm went on a run of their own, though, after earning their first point and quickly took a 6-4 lead over St. Kate's in the set. From there, the two teams battled for the lead, but the Wildcats were never quite able to take a definitive lead.
That all changed, though, midway through the second set. After a kill from
Emma Nelson (Byron, Minn. / Byron) cut Crown's lead to 9-8,
Brooke Beuning (New London, Minn. / New London-Spicer) went on a four point serving run to but St. Kate's back in front 12-9. Again, though, the Storm managed to tie the set at 12 before the Wildcats were finally able to take a definitive 19-13 lead. Although Crown managed to score seven more points, a service error by Christine Anderson gave St. Kate's a 25-250 set two victory.
In the third and final set, the Wildcats Wildcats continued to play their game in the third set and eventually earned the 25-20 win. Like in the first two sets, serving continued to be key for St. Kate's, as multiple serving runs guided the Wildcats to victory and stopped any sort of run the Storm managed to put together. In fact,
Kaylie Paitl (Braham, Minn. / Braham) put a stop to one of these runs herself, when she won the set, and ultimately the match, for St. Kate's with a kill from the middle.
The Wildcats statistically played their best match of the season in the 3-0 victory, compiling a season high 42 kills and .220 hitting percentage during the three set match. Peper led the team with 10 kills while
Libby Kreuser (White Bear Lake, Minn. / Totino-Grace) added seven of her own. Defensively, Brownlee and
Larissa Kisch (Oakdale, Minn. / Cretin-Derham Hall) each had 14 digs, while Schwarzrock led all setters with 12 assists.
With the win, St. Kate's improves to 7-11 on the season and has a 0-5 mark in Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) play. The Wildcats will return to competition on Saturday, when they travel down the road to take on Macalester College at 3 p.m.
