Volleyball Off To Best Start Since 2009 With Two Friday Wins

STEVENS POINT, Wis.- After beating Ripon College and Aurora University (Ill.) on Friday (Sept. 22), the UW-Oshkosh women's volleyball team is off to their best start since the 2009 season.

The 2009 squad won their first 29 matches and eventually tallied a 39-3 record with a WIAC regular season title and a third-place finish in the NCAA Division III Tournament.

The No. 3 nationally ranked Titans (16-0, 1-0 WIAC) competed in two of their three matches in the UW-Stevens Point Invitational on Friday, where they beat Ripon (6-7, 0-0 MWC) with scores of 25-13, 25-12 and 25-8 and Aurora (7-7, 2-0 NACC) with scores of 19-25, 25-20, 25-22 and 25-16.

UWO recorded 47 kills with a .363 kill percentage against eight and -.114 for Ripon. The Titans also lead 46-8 in assists, 6-2 in aces and 50-24 in digs. Brooke Porter led all players with eight kills, hitting .667 on 12 attacks. Kalli Mau recorded 14 assists, followed by both Jaclyn Dutkiewicz and Izzy Coon, who had 13 each. Libero Abby Fregien registered 16 digs.

UWO scored the first four points of its match against Ripon and kept a lead of at least four points for the rest of the set. The Titans owned three runs of four points and held the Red Hawks to just two runs of three points. Robyn Kirsch and Emmy Wizceb each recorded four kills.

The second set saw the Titans jump out to another early lead and remain in control the entire set. An eight-point run in the middle of the set extended UWO's lead to 21-7. The Titans went 4-5 the rest of the way, but the 14-point lead was too much for the Red Hawks. Brooke Porter led the way with eight kills in the set, beating her previous career-high match kill mark of seven against Ripon at home on Oct. 26, 2022.

UWO held Ripon to eight points in the third set and just two consecutive points. The longest Titan run was 10 points to take a 14-1 lead with three kills from both Riley Kindt and Perlberg.

UWO led the Spartans 60-50 in kills while holding a .268 kill percentage with 71 digs and 53 assists. Kindt led UWO with 14 kills, followed by Riley Dahlquist and Perlberg with 12 and Hannah Moe with 10. Mau paced the Titans with 25 assists and was closely followed by Maddy Pearson with 23. Fregien was once again the Titan dig leader (24), but both Amelia Hust and Coon also registered double-digit digs (11). Dahlquist added three aces.

The Titans dropped the first set of a match for the first time since they faced Texas Lutheran University on Sept. 1. The set remained close until four straight points gave the Spartans a 22-16 lead. Each team scored three more points with the set ending on a Spartan kill.

Aurora jumped out to an early second set lead, but a Moe block gave UWO the last lead. The UWO lead was later extended further by two Dahlquist aces and a Perlberg kill.

Perlberg recorded the first point of the third set on a kill and the Titans turned the script on the Spartans for a third set win. UWO led by as much as seven points during the set.

To make their best start to a season since 2009, the Titans scored five consecutive points after dropping the opening serve to Aurora. A spurt of four points gave UWO an eight point lead that it was able to ride out the rest of the way with the help of a smaller 3-0 run.

The Titans will play one more match in Stevens Point on Saturday, facing off against North Central College (Ill.) (8-2, 1-1 CCIW) at 11 a.m.