No. 9 Huskies advance to NSIC Championship Match with Semifinal Sweep of Augustana

Saturday, November 12

St. Paul, Minn.

7:30 P.M. CT

St. Cloud State

25-5,15-5NSIC

Augustana

20-10,11-9NSIC

Augustana (SD)

St. Cloud St.

Photo by: Thomas Breach

No. 9 Huskies advance to NSIC Championship Match with Semifinal Sweep of Augustana

11/12/2022 11:35:00 PM | Volleyball

Box Score

St. Cloud State faces No. 3 Concordia-St. Paul on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. CT for NSIC Championship

ST. PAUL, Minn. – No. 9 St. Cloud State Volleyball swept Augustana in an NSIC Tournament classic on Saturday evening at the Gangelhoff Center, advancing to the NSIC Championship match on Sunday.

SCSU relied on stellar performances from their middles and a gritty defensive-minded match, hitting just .231 as a team but piling up 53 digs and scoring six times from the service line. Sam Zimmerman and Phebie Rossi were exceptional, going 11-0-22 (.500) and 9-0-20 (.450) respectively with three blocks each.

An incredible second-set turnaround spurred on the straight-set win as the Huskies opted not to challenge a point down 20-11 then ripped off a 14-3 run to take the 2-0 lead in the match. SCSU put down 18 kills on .312 hitting in the final frame, earning the Semifinal sweep with a 25-20 final.

Kenzie Foley led all players with 18 digs and added 12 kills, double-doubling in her fifth straight postseason match. Linsey Rachel dug out 15 swings while Keely Kurschner recorded four aces.

Emma Berran dished out 36 assists and added five digs, directing the offense to 42 kills with a well-balanced attack distribution.

Quotables – St. Cloud State head coach Chad Braegelmann

"I saw a team that battled. Augustana put us in some really uncomfortable spots, especially early in set one. Right away they were up big. Set two we're down 20-11 – those sets are over. You don't come back when you're down 20-11. We outscored them 14-3 the rest of the way. Our servers did a fantastic job, really ripping some aggressive serves off. I thought we were fearless from the service line. Six aces, two errors, right where we want to be. Our goal is two aces per set – we want them to have that aggressive mentality. We have to be a little better defensively. They missed some serves, we had some aces, I think that was the difference tonight."

On the Huskies' strong passing effort… "Even the two aces both came in the first five or six points of the match. You take those out and we passed really, really well the rest of the match. They're great. There's a lot of pressure put on your primary three passers. There's no hiding them. We haven't made substitutions with those three, they know the responsibility of being primary passers and have stepped up to the challenge. A tip of the cap to them."

On Sam Zimmerman's critical performance… "Sam was fantastic offensively. She was very solid blocking, got good quality touches and put us in a good spot. She was swinging as aggressive and free as I've seen her swing probably the whole season. It never looked like she was scared or concerned about what was going on over on the other side. She was swinging high and hard, she was very effective. Even the balls they did get a soft touch on we covered – I thought our back row did a great job of covering and putting us into good spots to recycle and get another swing out of it."

Looking ahead to Sunday's Championship match.. "We're going to have to be really solid in serve-and-pass. Last night we passed a 2.22, tonight was a 2.29, the goal is a 2.3. Any time you can get close to that, we can move around – I thought Emma did a really nice job of being balanced with our set distribution. We were able to set a lot of those balls to Phebie and Sam to the pin and put a lot of pressure on their middles. We need to do that again tomorrow."

Quotables – St. Cloud State junior outside hitter Kenzie Foley

"Coming in, we knew that even though we beat Augie in the regular season, the regular season doesn't matter much because they come in and play out of their minds in the postseason. We wanted to come out and focus on our side of the net. Rely on what we do best, go from there and hopefully come out with the win. We got it done today."

"The other night on the bus we chatted about how we hadn't come back from a big deficit this season. We spent tonight trying to prove that wrong – we'll go with that! At the end of the day, we put our trust in each other. We put trust in knowing once we get one point, we're going to get the next one. Taking each point individually, rather than looking at the score as an outcome. Putting up a good block, trying to slow them down because they were running all over us. We were also scoring a lot points for them, so at the end of the day keeping our side clean was very important."

"I watched a lot of film coming into this game – obviously I want us to get back to where we were last year. Reading angles of approaches, reading if our block was closed and staying deeper when it was versus getting shallower when it wasn't. Ultimately just trying to put up good balls so our hitters can get a great ball from our setter and putting them away."

Quotables – St. Cloud State redshirt freshman middle blocker Sam Zimmerman

"Everybody was playing together as a team – it was a well-rounded effort and we were in system a lot. Our serve receivers and defense were great. We were a well-oiled machine tonight, everything was running well."

On her strong night on the offensive end… "Emma was getting me nice high balls that I could go get, looking for the blockers' hands when they had a double block. Listening to my defense behind me telling me where I could score, it was a whole team effort tonight."

"We are not done yet."

Notables

Sam Zimmerman put away 11 kills on .500 hitting with zero errors and three blocks
Kenzie Foley double-doubled with 12 kills and a match-high 18 digs to go with a block
Foley has double-doubled in five straight postseason matches dating back to 2021
Linsey Rachel added seven kills and 15 digs while going a perfect 21-for-21 in serve receive
Rachel recorded her 1,500^th dig in the match, becoming the program's first-ever 1500x1500 player
Phebie Rossi put down nine kills on .450 hitting with three blocks
Rossi is three blocks away from recording her 400^th collegiate block
Rossi and Zimmerman were a combined 20-0-42 for a .476 hitting percentage
Emma Berran piled up 36 assists and scored an ace
Keely Kurschner posted nine digs and four aces
Makena Hollman led SCSU with four blocks
The Huskies outhit Augustana .231 to .205 and out aced them six to two
St. Cloud State's serve receive was 55-for-57 on the night and is now 112-for-115 in the tournament (.974)
SCSU is now 7-1 all-time in the NSIC Tournament under head coach Chad Braegelmann

Up Next
The Huskies meet No. 3 Concordia-St. Paul at the Gangelhoff Center in St. Paul on Sunday afternoon for the NSIC Championship match at 1:00 p.m. CT. St. Cloud State's NCAA Tournament hopes come down to winning the conference title, as Harding earned the GAC Championship and non-regionally ranked Washburn won the MIAA crown on Saturday evening to earn two of the three automatic bids.

Information regarding single game and season tickets can be found at scsutickets.com. For all the latest on St. Cloud State Volleyball, stay tuned to SCSUHuskies.com and follow the team on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.