SIOUX CITY, Iowa – For the second straight night, No. 6-ranked Midland University earned a sweep in Sioux City, this time over Briar Cliff University (25-19, 25-11, 25-18). The Warriors’ offense was hitting all cylinders, picking up their 20th win of the season. Their record runs to 20-3 overall and 9-3 in the Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC). BCU falls to 7-15 and 1-10.
Midland opened the match with a 25-19 win in the first set. In the set, they had four three-point runs. The first gave them a 4-2 lead and the last closed out the set. Points 23 and 24 came via BCU errors before Lauryn Samuelson closed the book with a kill from Hope Leimbach. Samuelson had three kills in the set.
Set two saw the Warriors jump out to a 6-1 advantage. They never looked back as they kept the Chargers at bay the entire way. The end of the set was a mirror of the beginning as Midland closed out the set with another 6-1 run. Brooke Fredrickson, Cortlyn Schaefer, and Taliyah Flores each had a kill over the run as the Warriors won 25-11.
The third set was the closest of the night, but still went the way of Midland. After falling behind 9-5, BCU hung around for a while before a 4-0 run made it 16-10. The Warriors needed three set-points to seal the match, winning 25-18.
Midland hit .302 as a team in the sweep and limited their opponents to sub-.100 for the second straight night. BCU hit .056 with 19 errors to go with 24 kills.
Leading the way for the Warriors offensively was the trio of Flores (12), Abbey Ringler (11), and Schaefer (10). Fredrickson was one kill shy of double-figures with nine.
Defensively, Delanie Vallinch had nine digs from her libero position. She also led the team with three ace serves. At the net, Ringler had a hand in five of the Warriors’ seven blocks.
“I really liked our team defense and serve-receive tonight,” commented head coach Paul Giesselmann. “Briar Cliff didn’t score a lot of points for us sow we had to be very efficient. It was great to get two road GPAC wins. We need to get better this week to prepare for some high-level volleyball next weekend.”
Midland (20-3, 9-3 GPAC) will be back at home next weekend for a Friday and Saturday when they host No. 15 Dakota Wesleyan (20-5, 9-3 GPAC) and No. 1 Jamestown (23-0, 12-0 GPAC). First serve on October 22 is set at 7:30 p.m. and October 23 at 3:00 p.m.
