MEQUON, Wis. – The Concordia Wisconsin women's volleyball team returned to the win column on Thursday night. The Falcons downed Dominican 25-20, 25-13, 25-15 to improve to 11-12 on the year and to 7-3 in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference.
The Stars hung tough to start the first set on Thursday night and clipped the Concordia lead to 12-11. The Falcons then flew off with a 6-0 run with the serve of senior Ashley Habermehl (Brookfield, Wis.) to get some breathing room. Dominican dropped the CUW lead to four points on three occasions but a kill from freshman Lauren Kellner (Sobieski, Wis.) ended the set at 25-20.
The Blue and White started the second set with a 6-2 run to jump out to an early lead. The Stars quickly erased the deficit and tied the set at eight. The Falcons responded with a 4-0 run with kills from Lauren Kellner, Ashley Habermehl and senior Skylar Kumprey (New Berlin, Wis.) to force a Dominican timeout. Concordia used another late run to break away from the Blue and Gold in the second set winning 13 of the final 17 points to cruise to the 25-13 victory.
It was the Stars that shined bright to start the third set with a 3-0 lead and elevated the lead to 5-2. The Falcons quickly flipped the script in the third set and reclaimed the lead at 6-7 and flew off with an 8-0 run with the serve of senior Abby Proefrock (Grafton, Wis.) to elevate the lead to 13-6. The Birds never looked back and claimed the set at 25-15 with a kill from Ashley Habermehl.
The Falcons hit a season-best 0.353 on Thursday night.
Skylar Kumprey led the Falcons with 10 kills and had a 0.471 hitting percentage.
Kellner collected her first seven kills of her career and had a 0.545 hitting percentage on the evening.
The trio of senior Paige Stickney (Menomonee Falls, Wis.), Skylar Kumprey and Lauren Kellner all had three blocks in the victory,
Ashley Habermehl led the Falcons with 12 digs, two more than senior Brianna Lundt (Rosendale, Wis.) with 10. Habermehl also led the Birdies with two service aces.
Sophomore McKenna Oetzman (Reedsburg, Wis.) had 18 assists and junior Emily Dickmann (Grafton, Wis.) tallied 14 assists.
The Falcons return to action on Saturday at Wisconsin Lutheran.
