NEW ULM - Even though a five-let loss to the University of Minnesota-Morris had just taken place, the frustration had already set in for the Martin Luther College volleyball team.
The Knights played a very competitive match with the Cougars, but in the end the Cougars prevailed in a 25-18, 23-25, 25-18, 18-25, 15-12 Upper Midwest Athletic Conference match.
"It's hard to lose any game, but especially close, close matches when they go five games," MLC junior middle hitter Emily Boldt said. "It's kind of a heartbreaker."
For the Knights, the match was especially important because they were tied for third in the UMAC standings with the Cougars entering the match. Both teams had a conference record of 4-2 in what was the midway point of the UMAC schedule.
MLC is now 4-3 in conference play and 12-9 overall.
Now that the Knights have seen everyone in conference play, they are now focused on the second half of the season and are eyeing a possible spot in the UMAC postseason tournament.
"This is probably going to be our biggest game of the season [so far] and we have St. Scholastica and Northwestern, which are at the top of the conference so we have to give them a tough game," Boldt said. "We can't forget about teams that we've already beaten, we have to take them seriously because we can't make anymore mistakes."
In the fifth set, the Knights had to battle back from a 10-6 deficit. They eventually tied the set at 12-12 after kills by Mackenzie Krentz and Rachel Hein.
But after an interruption in play that delayed the game a few minutes, the Knight were unable to carry over the momentum they had as the Cougars closed out the match on a kill by Stephanie Schmiessing.
It was just the fifth time that the Knights have been involved in a five-set match this season.
"We were just making some errors, and anytime there's a delay in the game, that always kind of stalls it," Boldt said. "I guess it was just nerves that got to us."
The Cougars got off to a quick start in the first set, jumping out to a 7-1 lead on a kill by Kaylie Clark. The Knights battled back but were unable to close the gap in the 25-18 loss.
The second set saw 12 ties in the back-and-forth battle, but the Knights finally prevailed at the end and won on a hitting error by the Cougars.
The teams traded sets in the third and fourth set to force the fifth set.
"We knew coming in that it was going to be neck and neck and we'd probably go to five," Boldt said.
For the Knights, Rebecca Engelbrecht and Rachel Hein led the way with 13 kills and Boldt finished with 11 kills. Katelyn Hauf had seven kills.
Krentz finished with 41 set assists and Renee Peters led the way with 21 digs. Engelbrecht and Jaime Eternick each had 14 digs and Krentz finished with 11 digs.
Hein had seven ace blocks and Boldt finished with five ace blocks.
The Knights return to action Thursday when they travel to Crown, a team that MLC defeated in three sets to begin the conference season.
