Staff photo by Travis Rosenau MLC’s Ruth Buchholz spikes the ball past a pair of St. Scholastica players in the Knights’ second match of the day at Martin Luther College on Saturday.

NEW ULM — The Martin Luther College Knights’ volleyball team knew that after a rough start to the season, it had to come out of Saturday’s Upper Midwest Athletic Conference triangular with Crown College and the College of St. Scholastica with something other than a loss.

MLC (2-9, 2-0) decided to make that something a pair of wins, its first wins of the year.

The Knights picked up a victory over Crown (0-11, 0-2) 23-25, 25-18, 25-16, 25-14 in the first matchup of day before going on to top St. Scholastica (3-7, 1-1) 25-18, 25-23, 14-25, 26-24 later in the evening.

The Knights dropped a close first set to Crown after committing 11 attack errors. MLC settled down and cleaned up its attack in the second, third and fourth sets, though, and finished the match with 22 total attack errors.

Ruth Buchholz, the team’s only junior and most experienced player on the team, led the Knights’ attack with 10 kills against Crown.

Buchholz isn’t shying away from having to step up and take a leadership role over the young Knights, however. She’s welcoming the challenges and opportunity to lead the group of 11 freshmen and two sophomore.

“I like being a leader,” Buchholz said. “It’s definitely very exciting and it’s a great group of girls, so they make it super easy. It’s super exciting to have a young team. Sometimes it looks like, ‘Oh, you have a young team,’ but it’s really exciting.”

Having that young of a team can be a struggle at first, but Buchholz added that the young group is learning new things little by little.

“We’ve just been trying to teach them — work hard,” Buchholz added. “The speed of the game is a little faster than in high school, so just fight, keep going, don’t give up.”

Alyssa Heckendorf added nine kills for the Knights against Crown, while Jewel St. Germaine and sophomore Kati Aguilar each added eight. Katelyn Aswege led the Knights in digs in Match 1 with 25, while St. Germaine added 25 set assists, 12 digs and three aces.

The Knights stormed out in their second match of the day, taking the early 1-0 advantage after a first-set victory over the Saints saw Buchholz add three kills and Aguilar tack on two of her own.

The Saints made things tougher for MLC in Set 2, jumping out to a 15-8 lead to force an MLC timeout. The Knights got a kill each from Heckendorf and Kelsey Birschbach and added another point to trail 15-11 after a Saints attack error.

Trailing 19-13, the Knights battled back to tie it at 23-23 after a block by Buchholz and Jewel St. Germaine. An ace by Birschbach and another attack error by the Saints gave MLC the comeback win in Set 2.

After dropping a rough third set to the Saints, the Knights found themselves trailing again late in the fourth set, 19-15. MLC eventually tied it at 24-all after a kill by Buchholz.

An ace by St. Germaine put the Knights on top to force the set point, which was taken by MLC after an attack error.

Against St. Scholastica, Buchholz and Birschbach led the team in kills with 10 each, while Aguilar added eight. Aswege led the team in digs with 18, while Camryn Biebert and St. Germaine added 13 and 12, respectively.

Aswege also had three aces and 22 set assists against the Saints.

MLC head coach Becky Cox was proud of how her squad battled on Saturday and was happy to pick up the team’s first two wins of the season in UMAC play.

“We’ve been working really hard all week, we’ve had a whole week of practice, and the girls have come really far,” Cox said. “And I’m just super proud that they’ve finally put it together. In two of the sets, they came from behind to win, displaying mental toughness, which is also something I think there’s been a ton of growth in. I’m just really excited, and it’s always great to start out 2-0 in UMAC.”

The Knights are at Bethany Lutheran College on Tuesday for a pair of games against BLC and Minnesota Morris.