In the final weekend and homestand of the regular season, Wayne State College volleyball hosted the University of Jamestown and Northern State where they played seven sets, and used 40 Delaney Miller kills, and 12 Laney Kathol blocks to come away with two wins and end the regular season with a 19-1 conference record.
In the first game of the weekend, the ‘Cats took on the NSIC newcomers, the Jimmies from Jamestown.
The game went to three sets, and WSC ended the night with a sweep before signing posters for autograph night. The ‘Cats took set one 25-21, set two 25-11, and set three 25-21.
The Wildcats were led by Delaney Miller who had 17 kills, and got three aces from sophomore Molly Romano, and six blocks from junior Laney Kathol.
The ‘Cats struggled in set one hitting .175% with six errors and 13 kills. In set two, WSC had 18 kills, no errors, and hit .439% followed by set three where they had 17 kills with six errors while hitting .250%. The Wildcats were strong on defense with a total of eight blocks and 55 digs while holding the Jimmies to a .145 hitting percentage.
“We didn’t really know what to expect from them just because we saw them in Nashville, because they were also at that tournament, and they actually beat Trevecca, who we lost to, unfortunately,” sophomore Anna Borner said. “So, we didn’t know what to expect, but fortunately, we did come out with a win on that.”
In the final game of the regular season the ‘Cats hosted Northern State where they needed four sets to take care of business. WSC took set one 25-17 then lost set two 23-25 before winning set three and four, 25-19 and 25-13 respectively.
The Wildcats handled things offensively in this game where they had a .344 hitting percentage with 65 kills, 13 errors and seven aces. They also added on ten blocks and 78 digs.
The ‘Cats were led by Miller with 23 kills, which was her career high, three aces from Borner, and six blocks from Kathol.
“We were expecting that to be a pretty competitive game,” Borner said. “So it’s nice we kind of took care of them, but also got to see, a little bit higher level [competition] after our past couple weeks have been kind of light, so we were happy to be able to play them who, kind of gave us a bridge into the more competitive conference tournament this week.”
This match had many events tied to it, including 500 wins for head coach Scott Kneifl, a tie for regular season champions with Concordia-St. Paul, and overall No. 2 seed for the NSIC tournament.
The ‘Cats also jumped to No. 2 in the AVCA/TARAFLEX Division II WVB Poll along with Miller being named the NSIC Offensive Player of the Week and Romano named the NSIC Setter of the Week.
The No. 2 seed Wildcats will host the No. 7 seed Northern State Wolves Nov. 18 at 6 p.m. for the chance at the quarterfinals of the NSIC tournament.
“It doesn’t matter the opponent, we are going to go out and play our best ball, no matter what,” Miller said. “So, I think we need to completely wipe what we did this weekend and how we played and the team that we played because ultimately like their seasons on the line, our seasons on the line, we don’t know what’s going to happen after this game.”
