ST. PAUL - The Martin Luther College volleyball team suffered a pair of tough defeats at the UMAC Preview Tournament hosted by Northwestern on Saturday. The Knights lost its opening match 3-2 against Minnesota Morris, and then its second match 3-0 against St. Scholastica.

UMM 3, MLC 2

The Knights played very well to open the day, but were unable to take advantage of several opportunities to put UMM away in a 3-2 defeat by the scores of 21-25, 25-18, 28-30, 25-17, 15-13.

MLC took an early 1-0 lead over the Cougars with a 25-21 first-set win, and then overcame an early deficit to take the third set 30-28 to take a 2-1 lead in the match.

The Cougars forced a fifth set with a 25-17 fourth-set win, and the Knights roared to an 11-6 lead to open the deciding set.

UMM would stop the Knights' momentum from there, scoring five straight points to tie the game at 11-11, and then taking the final points to come away with the win.

Kira Grev and Jade St. Germaine were big for MLC throughout the match, leading the team with 22 and 19 kills, respectively. MLC finished the match with an attack percentage of .183, compared to .210 for UMM.

Heidi Moldenhauer set a new career high with 55 assists, while Rylee Weisensel had a strong game up front with seven blocks (three solo). Emily Neeb led the Knights with 21 digs. 

CSS 3, MLC 0

The Knights were put to the test in the second match, which started shortly after the UMM match finished. They were unable to slow down St. Scholastica in a 3-0 loss by the scores of 25-21, 25-13, 25-19.

MLC was unable to keep up the hitting percentage from the first match, and finished with an attack percentage of .022 in the match against the Saints.

Grev led the Knights in kills with nine, and also tied Weisensel for the team lead in blocks with four. Neeb once again led the team in kills with 15.

MLC fell to 1-12 on the season with the two defeats.

The Knights will return to action on Monday, September 21, when they host Macalester for a match scheduled to start at 7 p.m.