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New Ulm falls short against St. Peter

NEW ULM — New Ulm knew it would have its hands full when it welcomed the conference-leading St. Peter Saints to its home floor on Thursday night. And despite showing early confidence, the Eagles (9-9, 3-4) fell to the Saints (17-3, 6-0) in four sets of Big South Conference volleyball 25-20, 20-25, 25-13, 25-17.

Izzy Wolkow led the Eagles with 23 set assists, 20 digs and two aces, Nora Windschill had eight kills and five digs and Ashlyn Donner had six kills, three aces, 11 digs and a block. Olivia Wick had eight kills for New Ulm, while Elizabeth Shaul had 10 digs and Ellie Bute had nine digs.

The Eagles took an early 4-0 lead in the first set before a service error put the Saints on the board. New Ulm’s largest lead of the set was 8-3 after a kill by Donner and an attack error.

The Saints fought back for the first-set win, with their largest lead being the final score.

In Set 2, New Ulm trailed 11-6 after a spike by Brielle Bushaw. New Ulm then battled back to tie it at 16-16 after a kill by Nora Windschill.

Wick tipped over the set point for New Ulm, closing out the second set with a 3-0 New Ulm run.

Things took a turn for the worse for New Ulm in the third set, with St. Peter’s 6-2 Claire Nuessmeier taking advantage early on. Nuessmeier led the Saints with 21 kills on the night.

The Eagles began committing more errors in the third set as well, further allowing St. Peter to open up to a 15-6 lead. Nuessmeier added the final point for the Saints in the set on a kill.

“They’re a very well-rounded team,” New Ulm head coach Stef Dietz said of St. Peter. “They obviously have No. 13 [Nuessmeier] and if you can stop her, then you probably are going to be able to beat them. We did our best to try to block and we blocked some, we got some touches, but she’s a very good player.”

The fourth set was similar to Set 3, with the Saints taking a 20-11 lead after a block by Nuessmeier. The Eagles were never able to take a lead during Set 4.

“Those first two sets we came out fired up, we played hard, we knew what we had to do,” Dietz said. “We proved it in that first set, even though we lost, and then we won that second set playing our game. The third and fourth — we didn’t pass the ball very well and they took advantage of our errors.”

New Ulm hosts St. James Area at 7:15 p.m. on Tuesday.

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