Volleyball opens Huskies Classic with loss to No. 6 UMD

ST. CLOUD, Minn. – The No. 21-ranked Michigan Tech volleyball team fell 3-0 to No. 6 Minnesota Duluth Thursday (Sept. 12) at the Huskies Volleyball Classic. The Bulldogs won 25-22, 25-14, and 25-18.

"UMD caught us flat-footed tonight, and we didn't respond very well at all," Tech coach Matt Jennings said. "We came out the gate strong but got out of sorts in serve receive and then started compounding errors from there. We never got our bearings back after that."

Tech led by five early in the first set before the Bulldogs battled back to make it a one-point match at 14-13. Tech scored five of the next seven with kills by Laura De Marchi, Emilia Widen, and MacAulay Petersen. UMD controlled from there to take game one 25-22.

The two teams battled in the second frame to a 13-all tie. Again, the Bulldogs closed out strong, taking a 25-14 win heading into the break.

UMD led the whole third set. The Huskies scored seven of 10 to get back into it after kills by Morgan Radtke and Widen and a number of Bulldog errors. UMD got back on track and closed out the set and match with a 25-18 victory.

Olivia Ghormley led the Huskies with 11 kills while hitting .321. Radtke added six kills on only nine attempts and De Marchi set the attack with 28 assists. Grace Novotny paced the defense with 10 digs.

Meredith Sutton had a match-high 16 kills for UMD. Emily Balts recorded 31 assists and Keena Seiffert added 12 digs for the Bulldogs.

"Duluth is a great team and played fine, but we beat ourselves tonight," added Jennings. "We need to put this one behind us and get back to the basics tomorrow against two more good teams."

Tech will continue the tournament Friday (Sept. 13) against Bemidji State and host St. Cloud State. First serve against the Beavers is noon with an 8:30 p.m. start versus the other Huskies. Tech plays Minnesota Crookston to wrap up the weekend on Saturday at noon.