ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The St. Catherine University volleyball team fell to the No. 18 ranked Gustavus Adolphus Golden Gusties 3-0 on Senior Night. Despite the final conference loss, the Wildcats finish the conference season 6-5 earn the No. 4 seed in the conference playoffs.
The sophomore duo of
Liz Rosen and
Mallory Johnson led the charge for St. Kate's against the conference leading Gusties combing for a third of the team's attacks. L. Rosen had a team best nine kills along with nine digs. Johnson tallied a team best attack percentage of .353 to go along with her seven kills. Senior
Maggie Rosen recorded five kills against the Gusties with three digs, one block and one assist. Fellow senior,
Claire Segner led the back row with 17 digs and two aces plus four assists.
Gustavus was the first to ten in the first set with both teams starting slow before the Gusties went on a five point run to set the pace. St. Kate's inched back to get within two points twice but couldn't overcome the momentum Gustavus built to fall 25-20.
Set two started out in favor of the Wildcats as they took an early 6-2 lead. Gustavus came back to tie it at 8-8 before both teams went back and forth tying the score a total of ten times getting to 18-18. From there, the Gusties added four straight before senior Kasie Tweet stopped her own run serving the ball into the net. They wasted no time taking control again though adding three quick points to go up 2-0 with a 25-19 set win.
In the third and final set, the Gusties came out strong with a quick four point cushion but the Wildcats weren't ready to end the battle. With back to back runs from St. Kate's, they took over with a five-point lead. The magic number for the Gusties was 18-18 again taking the lead after that and finishing the set 25-22 and claim the match 3-0 for a perfect 11-0 MIAC season.
Next up for St. Catherine is one final regular season match at the University of Northwestern-St. Paul on Saturday, November 4 at 5 pm. From there, St. Kate's will host the No. 5 seeded Bethel University Royals on Monday, November 6 at Butler Center. The quarterfinal match is scheduled to begin at 7 pm.
