Volleyball Battle Royale in the Twin Cities

Photo by Dave Harwig

Friday night with Bulldog volleyball will feature a clash between a pair of Division II powerhouses, as the No. 2 University of Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs head to St. Paul to take on the No. 1 Concordia-St. Paul University Golden Bears.

With both teams sitting atop the nation at 13-0, one team is sure to suffer its first loss of the season.

“Concordia is just an extremely well-polished, well-coached team,” said Bulldogs head coach Jim Boos. “(They have) a lot of upperclassmen, they are very senior led, (they have had) a lot of kids with experience over the last three to four years.”

Not much has changed for Boos and his battalion of Bulldogs this week in preparation. Continuing to worry about themselves and their side of the net, Boos isn’t overly concerned about the seven-time national champions.

“I don’t know if the fact that we're going down to play Concordia really affects (the team) a whole lot from an approach standpoint,” Boos said. “I think it’s just more about ‘let’s continue to do what we’re doing and play who's ever next.’”

UMD has the firepower to overcome the Golden Bears, but will have to play with minimal lapses on offense and defense.

“We’re going to have to play low-error volleyball,” Boos said. “Concordia is the type of team who’s not going to make a lot of mistakes, but we’re also going to have to play aggressive.”

These two teams are very evenly matched. Out of the 12 statistics measured in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference, UMD and Concordia rank in the top five for eight of them.

“We’re going to compete, we’re going to go down there and really try to give it everything we got and see what can happen,” Boos said.

Following Friday's match, UMD stays on the road taking on the Mavericks of Minnesota State Mankato University Saturday night.