ST. LOUIS – The reigning NAIA Women's Volleyball national champions are headed back to Sioux City, Iowa to defend their title in less than two weeks. On Saturday evening, the No. 3 overall-seeded Missouri Baptist Spartans punched their ticket to the National Championship Final Site by sweeping Opening Round opponent Blue Mountain College by set scores of 25-11, 25-22, 25-15.
The Spartans, who are making their 13
th overall National Championship appearance and eighth straight under head coach
Chris Nichols, improved to 28-2 on the year. The American Midwest Conference regular-season and tournament champs have now won 24 in a row and extended their consecutive sets won streak to 27.
Blue Mountain's historic season came to an end at 30-9 overall. The Toppers won the Southern States Athletic Conference Tournament and qualified for the NAIA National Championship Opening Round in just their third year as a program.
MoBap came out firing on all cylinders, doing all the little things right: serving, passing, hitting, blocking, etc.
"We were serving and passing really well in the first set and anytime we can do those two things, we're going to be a really tough team to beat," Nichols noted in his post-match interview.
The Toppers struggled to slow down the Spartans, who jumped out to an early 14-3 lead and led by as much as 15 in the set. As a team, MBU hit .458% and were paced by outside hitter
Isidora Stojovic (4 kills), and middle blockers
Raylyn Dodd and
Sara Klunder with three kills apiece. Dodd was also a force at the net denying Blue Mountain on five occasions (2 solo blocks, 3 block assists).
Despite MBU pulling ahead 4-2 in the second set, Blue Mountain had other plans. The Toppers went on a 7-0 run with Mackenzie Anderson at the service line and kept a lead over the Spartans, all the way until the 17-17 mark. MoBap finally took the lead back at 18-17 following a fourth error in a row from the Toppers. Once the Spartans got back to serving and passing like they did in Set One, they settled in and staged a nice 25-22 comeback win.
Like the start of Set One, MBU raced out to a 7-2 lead behind the strong play of
Raylyn Dodd at the net, and
Manuela Vargas at the service line. Stojovic, Klunder and
Emma Lattimore also took turns putting down kills for the Spartans as the team hit .375% and finished with 15 kills and three aces in the 25-15 set win.
Throughout the match, MBU's middles were a tough task for the Toppers.
Sara Klunder led all players with 11 kills on just 13 swings, for a red-hot .846 hitting percentage.
Raylyn Dodd was third on the team with eight kills, a .400 attack percentage, and seven blocks (2 S, 5 A).
Joining Klunder in double-digit kills was
Isidora Stojovic with 10 to go along with four digs and two assists. On the assist front, 2021 AMC Player of the Year
Manuela Vargas dished out 36 assists and was in on three blocks.
Other leaders on the evening were
Ariana Macies with 15 digs and
Giovanna Tapigliani with three service aces.
No. 3-ranked Missouri Baptist will learn its Pool Play matchups on Sunday, Nov. 21 by 5 p.m. CST. Pool Play pairings will be announced on
NAIA.org.
