ST. PETER, Minn. – After a comeback victory in Saturday's region semifinals and a run through the St. Peter Regional, the College of Saint Benedict's 2018 season came to an end Sunday afternoon.
After taking a 1-0 lead on No. 14 UW-Eau Claire in the Region Championship match, the Blugolds came back strong and won the next three sets to earn a trip to the Elite Eight next weekend in Pittsburgh. The Blugolds, who are now 32-3, won 20-25, 25-22, 25-18 and 25-14.
Saint Benedict ends the season 26-8 overall, marking the most wins for the team since 2014. The trip to the Sweet 16 is the team's first since 2012, and along the way, CSB picked up its first win at the national tournament since 2013.
"These moments are always difficult because we're graduating three pretty exceptional players," head coach
Nicole Hess said. "Eau Claire played a great game. I thought we battled and kept fighting and I'm really proud of our team and I can't say enough about these seniors. Their leadership has been fantastic and we are forever grateful for what they did for our program."
In set two of Sunday's championship match, sophomore
Madison Weiss made history for the team as she broke the school record for blocks in a season. She finished the match with six block assists and ended her sophomore year with 194 total blocks – two more than the previous record of 192, set in 1999 by Carrie Otis. Both Madison and twin sister
Hunter Weiss earned spots on the All-Region Tournament team.
After going down 4-0 in Sunday's first set, CSB scored six straight points to go up 6-4, and aside from one short Blugold run to take a 12-11 lead, Saint Benedict led the rest of the match. Eau Claire got within 19-18, but an attack error and a kill from
Lauren Mathews pushed the lead back to three, and a block from Mathews and
Katie Koch and another Mathews kill gave CSB the win.
A pair of kills from
Madison Weiss and one from
Hunter Weiss gave CSB an early lead in Set 2, but the Blugolds went on a 9-2 run to take a 14-7 lead. The Blugolds led 24-20 before the Weiss twins got a block and
Haley LaValle had a service ace to make it 24-22, but a kill ended the set to tie the match 1-1.
The Blugolds' offense got going in the third and fourth sets, and CSB couldn't find an answer. Eau Claire hit .429 in the third set and .368 in the fourth while Saint Benedict hit .206 and .103. CSB was within 13-10 in the third set before Eau Claire made a run to pull away, and the Blugolds led 10-4 early in the fourth and final set before sealing up the region championship.
Mathews and
Hunter Weiss both finished with 11 kills to lead CSB, which hit .196.
Liz Schultz and
Madison Weiss both added nine, and Hunter and Madison both had six blocks and Mathews had four. Koch finished with 34 assists and 10 digs and LaValle led the team with 13 digs.
Allison Roehl had 11 digs and Schultz also finished with 10.
Madelyn Pashibin led UWEC with 19 kills. Madison Surprise had 53 assists and Makenzie Bachmann had a team-high 21 digs. The Blugolds had 81 digs to CSB's 56.
Sunday's match marked the final collegiate match for CSB seniors Schultz, Roehl and Mathews.
