FREMONT, Neb. – Midland University picked up their 23rd win of the season on Senior Night as they swept Doane University to wrap up the regular season. The Warriors avenged one of their few losses on the season, winning in straight sets (25-19, 25-17, 25-13), and clinched place in the Great Plains Athletic Conference with a 12-4 mark. Doane falls to 19-13 overall and 6-10 in the conference. They finished in eighth place for the final spot in the GPAC Postseason Tournament.
In the opening set, Doane scored the first two points of the match and led by as many as five early on. Trailing 11-5, Midland flipped the set in their direction with an 8-0 run with Hope Leimbach at the service line. Taliyah Flores had two kills in the run, which was largely scored off of attack errors by the Tigers. Another 4-0 run put the Warriors up 19-13 and then they closed out first on a 4-1 spurt, winning 25-19.
The second set saw the Warriors’ customary run come early on. They opened up a 9-2 lead and kept the Tigers at bay by not allowing more than two instances of multiple-point rallies. After the last run by Doane pulled them within 16-11, Midland went on a rally of 5-1 and closed out the set with a 25-17 win off a kill by Lauryn Samuelson.
It was nearly a carbon copy in the third as Midland stayed hot and quickly separated themselves from their opponents. Leading 13-8, four straight Tiger miscues on their attack followed by a slam by Cortlyn Schaefer all but seals the set and match. After trading points up to 23-13 score, MacKenzie Sempeck came on to serve and the Warriors quickly completed the sweep with kills by Brooke Fredrickson and Abbey Ringler.
Midland hit over .300 for the 10th time of the year under the coordination of Leimbach. She had 39 assists to go along with 4 digs, 1 kill, and 1 block assist.
Leading the way on the attack was Lauryn Samuelson who had a team-high 11 kills while hitting .474. Joining in double figures was Cortlyn Schaefer with 10 kills on the night. Both Taliyah Flores and Brooke Fredrickson registered eight kills.
Defensively, three Warriors were in double digits in digs. Maggie Sempeck had 10 while Flores and Delanie Vallinch led the way with 11 each. At the net, Midland had 11 blocks as a team. Samuelson had a hand in on eight while Fredrickson was right beside her with five stops.
“I was really proud of our team tonight. We’ve been working hard on a couple of things in practice for the last two weeks, specifically blocking, and to be able to see them transfer what we’ve been working on onto the court from a coach’s perspective is that is really satisfying,” commented head coach Paul Giesselmann. “I thought our blocking was outstanding tonight. It was a great night for our seniors. To finish the regular season 23-4 with the schedule that we’ve played, I couldn’t prouder of this team. Now it’s a matter of keep working to get better because the postseason starts Saturday against a really good team in Concordia. We’re excited about what we’ve accomplished in the regular season, but now it’s about what we do in the postseason.”
Midland (23-4) is the third seed in the GPAC Tournament and will host sixth-seeded Concordia (14-10) on November 6 in Fremont. The two rivals will serve it up inside the Wikert Event Center on Saturday at 7:00 p.m.
