Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Martin Luther College senior Paige Biesterfeld hits the ball during a home UMAC volleyball match with the University of North Central on Friday night at MLC.

NEW ULM — Behind a big block the Martin Luther College Knights couldn’t quite get past on Friday night, the North Central University Rams came back for a 20-25, 25-17, 25-16, 25-18 win in an Upper Midwest Athletic Conference volleyball match at MLC.

The Rams’ win avenged a five-set loss to MLC on Oct. 13 in Minneapolis.

MLC got 10 kills from Lauren Paulsen to lead the way, while Grace Kieselhorst and Paige Biesterfeld each had eight kills and Eleanor Tomhave and Ella Schlei each added five.

While the Knights had a solid number of kills total on the night with 40, errors piled up on them after a strong first set. The Knights had a hitting percentage of .219 in the first set and watched it drop to .050 by the end of the night.

“I think the North Central blockers were really strong tonight,” MLC head coach Emma Holzhueter said. “They read us well, they made adjustments when we made adjustments. … I think a good portion of it was they just blocked really well and we didn’t continue to adjust around it. I thought our players did a good job of trying to mix things up more so they could go around it, but, unfortunately, that meant it was tougher to get a kill by adjusting to a block.”

MLC also got 19 set assists from Grace Kieselhorst and 12 from Ella Walz, while Natalie Ritter had 14 digs and Paulsen and Naomi Bridgemen each had 13 digs. Tomhave also had three blocks for the Knights.

UNC was led by Sydney Carlson’s 15 kills and three blocks, while Lola Huhta had 12 kills, Lexie Semrau had 10 kills and Hailey Lerfald added nine kills. Lily McCarty had 25 set assists for UNC, while Jada Lee had a team-best 18 digs.

After an 8-1 run and a block by Megan Kieselhorst put MLC up 17-9 in the opening set, UNC burned a timeout. UNC responded out of the timeout and cut the deficit to 4 late in the set twice, but a kill by Grace Kieselhorst gave the Knights the first set.

Errors then started to take a toll on the Knights in the second set as four early errors had the Knights down 7-2. MLC trailed by as much as 11 in the set before falling 25-17 after an attack error.

MLC led early in the third set, but the Rams began to pull away midway through the set. The Rams closed the set with a 5-0 run.

Tomhave started the fourth set with a kill to have the Knights up first, but it was answered with a quick kill from Carlson. Paulsen then had a kill to give the Knights a 2-1 lead, which ended up being their last lead of the night. MLC trailed by as much as 8 midway through the set before falling 25-18.

While the Rams may have blocked the Knights from a conference win, they couldn’t block the Knights from reaching the postseason as MLC has already officially clinched the final spot in the UMAC Tournament with a 6-6 UMAC record.

Despite that, Holzhueter wants to see her team continue to climb from here out as the regular season winds down. MLC is at Wisconsin-Superior (7-4 UMAC) on Friday night before traveling to Northland (4-7) for a Nov. 4 conference matchup.

“We’re taking a day off tomorrow, I hope that helps,” Holzhueter said. “At this point in the season, it’s that tough — we need a little bit more rest, but we also want to keep preparing for the next one. And our sights are set on beating Superior. They’re in the third spot and that’s where we want to be.”

NCU improved to 12-10 overall and 3-7 in the UMAC with the win, while MLC dropped to 8-16 overall.