Mankato, MN -- Coming off a big road win over Martin Luther last night, North Central University (NCU) volleyball finished the weekend with a matchup against the Bethany Lutheran College (BLC) Vikings. The last time these two squads met, the Rams would come up short at home losing 3-1. Today, NCU would struggle to close out sets and BLC would win 3-0. 

Set one would get off to a rocky start for NCU as the Rams would find themselves down 6-1 early. However, strong play by freshman setter Lily McCarty would ignite NCU as they would battle back to tie the game at 10-10. The Rams would then take the lead 14-12 off of a pair of kills from North Central's leader in kills this year, Sydney Carlson. The set would continue to go back and forth as neither team would give an inch. With the game tied at 22-22, the NCU would commit two errors and both teams would record a kill to end the set in Bethany's favor at 25-23.

North Central would open the second set with a 3-1 early lead. They would continue their strong play and grow their lead to 11-4. The Vikings would claw back to bring the game to within two points at 18-16. At this point, NCU's momentum would dissolve as Bethany would win 9 straight points to steal the set by a score of 25-18. 

Set three would begin and the Rams would fight hard to extend this game to extra sets. Sydney Carlson tallied 5 kills and 3 service aces to carry the team to a 13-11 advantage. The Vikings continued to challenge NCU as they fought back to tie the game at 21 all. Errors down the stretch would haunt the Rams again, as they committed three errors and Bethany stole to last 4 points of the set to win 25-21 and win the game three sets to none. 

Offensively they were led by freshman Sydney Carlson who had 11 kills and 3 aces. Setters Grace Brigson and Lily McCarty combined for 21 assists on the afternoon. Defensively, Maci Tripp led with 13 digs, followed by Katie Martin with 9 digs. 

Box score can be found here.
 

Looking Ahead:

The Rams enter their final week of regular season play as they open play on Wednesday, November 1st against the University of Northwestern Eagles. Game time is set for 4:00 pm.

All fans are encouraged to tune into the official Rams Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter pages for updates on Rams Volleyball and all things NCU Athletics.