Sophomore outside hitter Erica Haslag celebrates a kill against South
Dakota State Sept. 4 at the North Dakota State Classic. Photo via bradleybraves.com.
The women’s volleyball team travelled out to North Dakota State University last weekend for the North Dakota State Classic. Unfortunately the results weren’t exactly what they were hoping for.
The Braves struggled against Northern Illinois, University of Texas at El Paso and North Dakota State, as they were only able to take one set in all three matches combined.
“We played some really tough competition at North Dakota State,” coach Carol Price-Torok said. “We played veteran teams that really capitalized on some of our errors, and that contributed to the losses.”
Even with the three straight losses, the team responded well with a win over South Dakota State (SDSU) on Sunday afternoon. The Braves beat SDSU in straight sets as sophomore Erica Haslag led the team with 18 kills. Senior middle blocker Kelsey Cave also contributed with nine kills and one block.
“I was proud of the way the team played against SDSU,” Price-Torok said. “It was good to see that they could bounce back quickly and move on to the next opponent, which is going to be very important once conference play starts.”
Cave said she thought her team learned a lot from the losses this weekend, and was excited at how quickly the team was able to regroup.
“We are continuing to learn how to work together,” Cave said. “We’re understanding how to complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses. But we were able to reflect on the three losses and come out and play well as a team to finish the weekend with a win.”
The volleyball team will head out to Kansas City for the Kangaroo Klassic, playing two matches on Friday against the University of Nebraska-Omaha and Cornell. They will wrap up the weekend with a matchup against the University of Missouri-Kansas City on Saturday.
“We will be facing very strong teams that have some veteran players who know how to win,” Price-Torok said. “We are focused on being organized and playing our style of volleyball.”
Cave expanded on what the players need to do to succeed this weekend and into the future as the season progresses.
“I think continually focusing on the next match is important,” Cave said. “We also need to focus on ourselves and what we’re going to do to prepare for what’s upcoming.”
