College of Saint Benedict

The College of Saint Benedict volleyball team had a marathon start to the 2014 season.
 
The Blazers played four games in two days at their annual Labor Day Tournament. Two of those games went to five sets, and three of those sets took extra points before the winner was decided.
 
Through it all, senior Taya Kockelman guided the CSB offense and played a key role for the Blazers, ranked No. 9 in the AVCA, as they went 2-2 over the weekend and played a pair of five-set thrillers against two very talented teams.
 
For her performance over the weekend, Kockelman has been named the Blazer Athlete-of-the-Week. She finished the four-game stretch with 167 assists, 35 digs, 23 kills and eight blocks.
 
The Blazers started the weekend with a 3-0 win over UW-Platteville. Kockelman, a Minneota, Minn., native, recorded 36 assists, seven digs and five kills. CSB followed that up with another three-game sweep, this one against UW-Eau Claire. Kockelman added 31 assists, seven kills and seven digs to her stat line to help the Blazers to a 2-0 record on their first day of 2014.
 
St. Ben’s came up against two strong opponents Saturday, including No. 3 UW-Stevens Point. The Blazers pushed the Pointers to five sets, but came up just short in the 3-2 loss. Kockelman recorded 50 assists, seven digs, five kills and three blocks. Less than an hour later, the Blazers took the court again, this time against Northwestern, and played another five-set match and again came up just short in a 3-2 loss.
 
Kockelman added another 50 assists to her weekend stat line, along with 14 digs, six kills and two blocks.
 
After four games, Kockelman is second in the MIAC with 10.44 assists per set and 167 total assists.
 
The Blazers are back in action for a single game this Saturday, Sept. 6, against St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minn. St. Ben’s is back on the road Sept. 12-13 for the UW-Oshkosh Invite in Oshkosh, Wis., and returns home Sept. 17 when it hosts Macalester in its first MIAC contest of the season.