Playoff Destiny Still Resides In Moorhead

ST. JOSEPH, Minn. (10/28/23)---It was the age ol' tale of bad news and good news for Concordia in their conference road doubleheader weekend.

The bad news: the Cobbers lost 3-2 at St. Olaf on Friday and then dropped a 3-0 decision at St. Benedict on Saturday.

The good news: Concordia still has their playoff destiny in their own hands with one match left in the regular season.

The two defeats drop Concordia's conference record to 5-5. They are currently in a 2-way tie with Bethel for sixth place in the race for the Top 6 spots to make the conference tournament. The even better news is that the Cobbers own the tie-breaker with Bethel and Augsburg, who are directly above CC with a 6-4 record. The best news is that the Royals and Auggies play each other in the final match, so a Cobber win over Carleton at home next Friday will send CC into the postseason.

The best match of the weekend came on Friday when Concordia battled St. Olaf through five nail-biting sets. The teams traded 25-23 wins in the first two sets. The Oles took a 2-1 lead with a 25-17 victory in the third set. The Cobbers showed the experience they've gained this season by overcoming a 23-21 deficit in the fourth set to post a 26-24 win.

The fifth set was tied at 8-8, then St. Olaf held 1-point leads at 9-8, 10-9 and 11-10 before they finished the match on a 4-0 run.

Concordia hit .171 on Friday and was led by Hannah Keil, who had a career-high 18 kills and hit .304.

Brook Carney and Mallory Leitner both had 13 winners, while Kaia Lill added 48 assists and a career-high 22 digs.

Saturday was a different story for Concordia as they could never get into their offense and lost 25-15, 25-16, 25-20.

The Cobbers hit .162 against the Bennies but were undone by a St. Ben's frontline that posted a .277 attack percentage and held a 44-31 advantage in kills for the match.

Maria Watt had a team-high eight kills against CSB and hit .375. Lill put up another 28 assists, and Chloe Markovic led the defense with 12 digs.

UP NEXT: It's a playoff match before the playoffs when the Cobbers host Carleton on Friday, Nov. 3 at 7 p.m.