ST. PAUL, Minn.- On an afternoon that saw UNW Athletics honor Head Volleyball Coach
Beth Wilmeth for picking up her 500
th career win on Friday night, the Eagles gave their head coach win #501 by sweeping Bethany Lutheran College inside the Ericksen Center on Saturday.
With the victory, #6 UNW moved to 8-2 on the season and 2-0 in UMAC play with both of those conference wins coming this weekend. The Eagles won all six UMAC sets they played this weekend, sweeping Martin Luther on Friday night and Bethany Lutheran on Saturday afternoon. Today's sweep was led by junior
Ari Schmidt (Albany, Minn./Holdingford) who turned in a jaw-dropping stat line that you do not see very often on the volleyball court. Schmidt finished with 16 kills on 22 attempts, finishing with an incredibly efficient hitting percentage of .727 which is off the charts.
Bethany Lutheran was ready to play as soon as they got off the bus as they gave the Eagles a very challenging first set. The Vikings jumped out to a 5-1 lead and played from in front for a majority of the first half of the set. The Eagles would take their first lead of the afternoon 13-12 but BLC scored immediately to knot the game back up. The two UMAC teams continued to trade points until the opening set was locked in a 21-21 tie. The Eagles used a Viking attacking error and two kills from outside hitter
Abby Glanzer (Brandon, S.D./Sioux Falls Christian) on their way to a 3-0 run to take control of the set, 24-21. Bethany Lutheran would get back-to-back points of their own but the Eagles would get the one more point they needed to take set one 25-23.
The second set was the Eagles' most dominant of the afternoon. The set was tight early as the scoreboard showed a 4-4 tie. Two kills each from
Ari Schmidt (Albany, Minn./Holdingford) and
Kiera Brown (Columbia Falls, Mont./Columbia Falls) paired with an ace from
Abby Glanzer (Brandon, S.D./Sioux Falls Christian) propelled UNW to a 5-0 run to take a 9-4 lead. The Eagles' lead would never get lower than four points for the rest of the set as they cruised to a 25-13 set two victory.
Facing a potential sweep, Bethany Lutheran seemed to respond well early on in the third set jumping out to a 5-2 lead. The set was tied at 15-15 as the Eagles were trying to end the match while the Vikings were trying to extend it. The Eagles would go on two incredible scoring runs to outscore the Vikings 10-2 down the stretch. The Eagles' first 5-0 run featured two kills from Schmidt and one from Brown. The Vikings scored two consecutive points to momentarily stop the bleeding. But the Eagles would score five more consecutive points to win the set 25-17 and complete the sweep of Bethany Lutheran.
Marylyn Schroyer (Ft. Collins, Colo./Ft. Collins) ended the game in style with a serving ace to seal the win.
Kiera Brown (Columbia Falls, Mont./Columbia Falls) joined her teammate
Ari Schmidt (Albany, Minn./Holdingford) with an incredible hitting percentage in the game picking up 8 kills on 13 attempts for a .538 percentage.
Abby Glanzer (Brandon, S.D./Sioux Falls Christian) finished with 15 kills and 11 digs.
Grace Strickfaden (Norwood-Young America, Minn./NYA) finished with 27 assists and
Hannah Gadient (Goodhue, Minn./Goodhue) had 15.
Marylyn Schroyer (Ft. Collins, Colo./Ft. Collins) had 11 digs and
Hannah Rich (Lakeville, Minn./Lakeville North) added 10.
After a brief stint of conference games this weekend, the Eagles will venture outside of the UMAC once again this upcoming week. #6 UNW will square off with Augsburg University on the road on Wednesday, September 27
th at 7:00pm.
