Friday, November 20
6:00 p.m. - Gangelhoff Center - St. Paul, Minn.
No. 6 seed #15 Minnesota Duluth (23-9) vs. No. 7 seed #20 Metro State (26-6)
BOX SCORE - MATCH PHOTOS - SEMIFINAL PRESS CONFERENCE VIDEO
RECAP: ST. PAUL, Minn. - The #20-ranked and no. 7 seeded Metro State Roadrunners continue to ride the high of the 2009 postseason, snapping off a 3-0 win over #15-ranked Minnesota Duluth, the Central Region Tournament's no. 6 seed, on Friday evening at the Gangelhoff Center in St. Paul, Minn. The Roadrunners took the match in straight sets, 25-23, 25-21, 25-18 to improve to 26-6 on the year and earn a place in the Championship match, held Saturday evening at 7:00 pm.
While the Bulldogs rolled on a momentum high to get past the quarterfinals, an opposite lull did them in and ended their season against the Roadrunners in the semifinals. UMD had appeared in the Central Region championship match every year since 2004, breaking a five year rivalry game against Concordia University.
The team never hit over .118 in any set of the match and finished the night with 25 hitting errors and a dismal .088 hitting average. Metro State College took every ounce of momentum given to them, putting up a .278 hitting average on the evening.
Middle hitter Lisa Jones put up a match high 11 kills for her Roadrunners and finished the night with a .529 hitting average. She was especially effective in the important first set of the match, putting down five mighty kills without an error. Until this point in the Central Region Tournament, the team who has come away with a win in the first set has emerged as the victor in the match.
The Bulldogs were flat from the outset of the match and had seemingly very few moments where they appeared to have a grasp on their game. They came into the match hitting .280 on the season and have only hit worse than their .088 once on the year, hardly ever coming close to the mark in any other match.
Metro State put up 38 kills to UMD's 34 and six team blocks to the Bulldogs' three. Amy Watanabe had 13 digs to lead the defensive push for her squad. Julie Causseaux added eight kills to Jones' 11 and also led the team with four blocks.
Minnesota Duluth Match Notes: UMD is the 15th ranked team in the nation ... This is UMD's eighth consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament ... The Bulldogs snapped a four-match losing streak last weekend with their win at Augustana ... UMD swept UNK in a 2003 tournament at North Dakota State ... Duluth owns a 4-2 lead in the series against Kearney ... This is UMD's 13th appearance in the NCAA Tournament ... The Bulldogs own a 16-13 record in tournament play.
Metro State Match Notes: This was No. 20 Metro State's 10th consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament ... This was Metro State's 17th appearance in the NCAA Tournament ... The Roadrunners are 9-16 in NCAA Tournament play ... Metro State's ranking of 20th in the NCAA Division II AVCA top-25 is their second time being ranked since Sept. 5, 2005 ... Gabrielle Curtis now ranks third in Metro State Volleyball history with 3,274 career assists ... Metro State won its fifth RMAC Tournament in 10 years ... The Roadrunners are now 2-1 against the SMSU Mustangs ... Metro State has won 13 of its past 14 matches ... Their past three wins have come against AVCA top-15 teams ... Metro State is 4-4 against teams ranked in the Division II AVCA top-25 this season ... Metro State is 1-7 all-time against UMD ... Metro State is 1-5 against the Bulldogs in neutral sites ... Yesterdays win over SMSU was their first win in the NCAA Tournament since they swept UC-Colorado Springs in 2007.
MINNESOTA DULUTH QUOTES:
Head Coach Jim Boos:
Opening Statement: “I want to wish Metro the best of luck in the rest of the tournament. My hats off to them. They came to play and brought everything they had. They deserved to win.”
On lack of energy: “We didn’t play well. Metro pressured us with tough serving. We were never able to get into our system. Metro did a great job keeping us off-balance. We could just never get things clicking. We had a game plan for Kearney. We had two weeks to prepare for them. We had little prep time for Metro. I give Metro credit…they were hot tonight.”
Junior middle blocker Alyssa Nelson
On lack of energy tonight: “Energy was missing tonight. It is hard to regain energy when the other team is playing so well.”
Senior libero Rachel Jacobson
On the match: “We came in confident. We did what we could. It just wasn’t in the cards.”
METRO STATE QUOTES:
Head Coach Debbie Hendricks:
Opening statement: "Well I'm extremely proud of this team and our response to how we played yesterday, we did not ball control well yesterday and today our ball control was phenomenal. We came in with the outmost respect for Duluth after watching the way they played yesterday. We had hoped that they wouldn't play quite at the level that they did yesterday. I think we served very aggressively and I think we passed very well which allowed Gabe to run the offense. They (Duluth) have a phenomenal program and I have the outmost respect for Jim and everything they do over there. We are very happy to be in this position right now."
On energy and strong start: “Well part of it was that we knew after watching Duluth play yesterday they played with a great deal of energy. We knew that if we weren’t able to match that we were going to be in big trouble on our side. In order to overcome the emotion of everything we made that a big point. I’m really proud of our team for doing that.”
On the altitude difference: “It obviously can’t hurt. The one thing that we noticed was that the ball dropped a lot more, especially on the serves. I don’t know if you noticed but yesterday there were a few balls that dropped short on us. Because there is a little bit of difference, when teams from here come up to our place they notice that the ball floats a little more.
Junior middle blocker Lisa Jones
On hitting with authority: “Honestly, she (setter Gabe Curtis) distributed the ball really well and I just happened to be put into great situations. It just happened to drop, its an amazing feeling (to perform well) but it is important that our team played together and won.
On hitting against a good blocking team: “Today during practice we worked on hitting shots off of big blocks. We probably worked 15 minutes on it. I think working on that today really helped. We were able to see the blocks coming and react to the situation.”
Senior setter Gabrielle Curtis
On difference from their match yesterday: “I think yesterday like coach said we came out a little bit flat. We came out after watching them (Duluth) play yesterday that we needed to bring our “A” game, we knew that we had to step it up a level to match them."
On digging against a good serving team: “I think I always come out with a mind set to be aware of the ball. I was just really focused on that. Our ball control put me in great situations to help put the hitters in good situations.”
MATCH PHOTOS (link will direct you to CU's Flickr page)
