DECORAH, Iowa – The Gustavus volleyball team concluded the Sugar Loaf Tournament with a set of wins over University of River Falls 3-0, and Luther College 3-0. With the wins, the Gusties finish 3-1 on the weekend, and improve to 4-1 overall.
“It was overall a good opening weekend,” said Head Coach Rachelle Sherden. “Especially bouncing back after the first match, which was a super gritty and long battle where we came up short for the outcome we wanted. But we learned a lot about what we need to keep working on, and it fueled the team the rest of the tournament.”
With the wins, Kate Holtan (Sr., Rochester) notched her 1,000th career dig making her the second player in program history to hold over 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs, alongside Katie Olstad (1992-1994).
Gustavus 3 – 0 University of Wisconsin River Falls
The Gusties started set one by playing catch up to a 4-1 Falcons lead. Kills from Turn and Elliott brought the score back in favor for Gustavus, 6-4. The Gusties maintained a 10-7 lead before going on a six point run. UWRF retaliated with five points but Gustavus had the first set locked down with a 25-17 win.
Both teams gained momentum in the second set going point-for-point until the Falcons drew a 12-9 lead. The Gusties continued to trail by two at match point before UWRF made costly attack errors to tie it up. A kill from Holtan kept Gustavus in the game and the trio of Herrmann, Elliott, and Olson led the Gustie attack to come out with a gritty 31-29 win.
Gustavus closed out the final set with a 7-2 lead before the Falcons tied it at 12. The game remained tied until service errors from UWRF leveraged a final Gustie lead to finish the sweep in a 25-20 third set.
Holtan led the team with 13 kills while Sarah Elliott (Jr., Lombard Ill.) had 10. Hailey Embacher (Sr., Mankato) remained strong on the back line with 19 digs, and Kasie Tweet (So., Adrian) closed the match with 27 assists.
In match two the Norse kept the Gusties to a 7-7 tie early in the first set before game changing kills from Marlee Turn and Holtan. Gustavus took over with a five point run with and Sydney Olson (Jr., Willmar) delivered a final kill for a 25-13 win.
The Gusties put the pedal down in set two, with a 10-3 early lead and ran up a 20-7 scoring spree, before ending the set 25-12.
Aiming for a clean sweep Gustavus stayed ahead of a 12-7 lead and boasted an impressive ten point run for a final set score of 25-10.
Holtan finished the second match with a team high 12 kills while Marlee Turn (So., Kennedy) had eight. Kylee Cox (Sr., Brooklyn Center) had a team high 13 digs.
The Gusties are back in action on Friday with a weekend tournament at Cornell.