The 17th-ranked Wayne State College volleyball team defeated MSU Moorhead in the Northern Sun Conference volleyball opener Friday evening in Minnesota, but were delivered a loss against Northern State.

WSC took an early 6-1 lead in the opening set in their match against the Dragons and forced the MSU Moorhead team to get eight attack errors in the opening match, and managed to close the first set with a 25-16 win. Freshman Kelsie Cada led the team at the net with five kills, following up to those five, senior Katie Stephens added four more points to the scoreboard.

The Wildcats got an early lead on the MSU Moorhead Dragons in the second set of the game, kicking up the score to 10-3 before ultimately finishing the second set with a 25-14 score.

“We played really well against Moorhead and were able to control the game for the most part,” outside hitter Alyssa Ballenger said.

The Cats finished off the Dragons in the third set with a final score of 25-9, ending the match at 3-0. Cada managed to notch six kills in seven attacks while defensive specialist Maddie Duffy served up two aces in the set to help complete the sweep. Wayne State finished the match with a .361 attack percentage on 43 kills, eight errors and 97 attacks.

Northern State’s team jumped out to an early lead against WSC, in the opening set forcing the Wildcats back. But the Wildcats rallied and scored three straight points on Northern State set point and got within one at 24-23 before falling 25-23. Northern State is currently the ranked number 8 in the country.

“We ran into a really good team and took a tough loss,” Duffy said.

However the team’s morale still remains high and they’re looking forward to learning from it and getting better.

“We’ve been on the road for the last three weeks so we’re excited to finally play some games in Rice in front of our home crowd.” Duffy said.
Wayne State College is now 9-1 on the season.

“It’s still really early in in the season but our goal is to win the National Championship,” Ballenger said.

The team is still showing a lot of potential and is up for any challenge in the future.

The Cats will next face Minot State University in Wayne on Friday Sept. 27 at 6 p.m.