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Saint Mary's University of Minnesota Athletics

THE OFFICIAL SITE OF SAINT MARY'S UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA CARDINAL ATHLETICS

Road to tournament bye hits roadblock

Donny Nadeau, SMU Sports Information Office

Match Summary

NORTHFIELD, Minn. — The road to a bye in the first round of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament just got a bit rockier for the Saint Mary's University volleyball team.

The Cardinals, needing to just beat their final two MIAC opponents to assure themselves of a first-round by in the six-team postseason conference tourney, hit a roadblock Wednesday evening, as Carleton outlasted SMU 3-1.

The two teams split the first two games by identical 32-30 scores, with the Knights taking Game 1, while the Cardinals evened things up with a win in Game 2. From there, however, it was all Carleton, as the Knights won the final two games 30-25 and 30-27.

The loss drops the Cardinals to 7-3 in the MIAC — but more importantly, puts them in a four-way tie for second place with Concordia, St. Benedict and Bethel. St. Thomas locked up the regular-season conference crown  Wednesday with a 3-2 win over Concordia, while Carleton currently holds down the No. 6 spot at 6-4.

The Cardinals (18-6 overall) have already locked up a tournament berth, but where they finish all comes down to next week's final conference games. SMU closes out the MIAC regular season at Gustavus (5-5), while Concordia is at St. Benedict and Bethel is home against Macalester (5-5).

There was a silver lining to the Cardinals' loss as Tracy Koertgen (Crystal Lake, Ill.) collected a team-high 22 kills to give her 310 for the season, but more importantly, it pushed the SMU junior past the 1,000-kill mark. Koertgen currently has 1,005 for her career, making her just the sixth player in SMU history to have 1,000 or more kills.

Kirstan Rouzer (Comstock, Wis.) inched closer to becoming the seventh 1,000-kill performer, tallying 19 against the Knights to give her 883 for her career, while Tessa Stranik (Eatonville, Wash.) chipped in 54 assists. Katie Freeman tallied 17 kills to lead four Carleton players in double figures in kills.
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