ST. JOSEPH, Minn. – In her first season with the College of Saint Benedict volleyball team, Briana Schmiesing set a career-high of three kills in a match early in her college career against UW-Eau Claire.
It didn’t take long for Schmiesing, a 6-foot outside hitter from Sauk Centre, Minn., to set a new career-high, then another, then another. She recorded 13 kills against Bethel on Sept. 25, a career high that stuck for a month, and one that she matched several times.
Last week, however, Schmiesing blew her career-high out of the water, and she couldn’t have picked a better time to do it.
Schmiesing led the team with 21 kills – a new career-high – in a five-set win against Augsburg Wednesday. Those 21 kills helped the Blazers beat the Auggies 3-2 and ultimately secure home-court advantage for at least one round of the MIAC Tournament. Schmiesing followed up that performance with 13 more kills Saturday in a sweep of Concordia.
For her big week, Schmiesing has been named the CSB Athlete of the Week.
Wednesday’s performance comes after a season of setting new career highs. Early in the season, Schmiesing seemed to set a new career-high each match as she had six kills on Sept. 8 against Minnesota-Morris, then eight Sept. 11 against Eastern and nine a day later against UMass Boston.
Schmiesing hit double-digits in kills for the first time on Sept. 18 when she recorded 12 in a 3-1 win over Coe College. She bested that on Sept. 25 with 13 kills against Bethel, a total she matched against Carleton on Oct. 7 and again Oct. 17 against UW-Eau Claire.
Schmiesing, who led the team a second time with 13 kills Saturday in CSB’s sweep of Concordia, finished with just two errors Wednesday in 47 attempts and hit .404 on the night. She finished the week averaging 17 kills per set. She also had four digs on the week and two total blocks.
The Blazers look for Schmiesing to stay hot as they start their run through the MIAC Tournament. CSB, which earned the No. 3 seed thanks to its two wins last week, hosts No. 6 Carleton at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3, in a quarterfinal match. The winner travels to Arden Hills Thursday to take on Bethel. The conference championship match is Saturday, Nov. 7, at the highest remaining seed.
