By Chris Schmidbauer, Sports Information Director
Rochester, MN -- The Owens Express Volleyball program, after almost two weeks since playing in game competition, were able to defeat the No. 9 seed Jefferson Cannoneers in Thursday's NJCAA Division III Volleyball National Quarterfinal.
Due to being the No. 1 seed in the tournament, Owens received a first round bye before playing their first match of the day in the early evening. Owens got off to a bit of a slow start, trading points back and forth early with the Cannoneers. Owens would trail 9-7 after a service aces by Jefferson's Marjorie Vazquez. The Express would call a timeout, which would jump start the team on to a four point run to claim the lead 11-9. They would push that lead as high as nine at 23-14 after a kill by Tyriana Settles. Jefferson would get a point to reach 15 points, before Owens tallied the set's final two points, closed out by a Kayla Bekier kill. Owens took the first set 25-15.
In the second set, Owens would jump out to a 10-5 lead, which came after an attack error by the Cannoneers. The lead would swell to 15-9 for the Express before Jefferson would push back. They would take the next three points to trim the Owens lead to just three at 15-12. The Express would get hot, though, taking the match's next eight of nine points to secure a 23-13 lead after a kill from Kayla Bekier. Again though, Jefferson would not go quietly, taking three straight points to trim the Express lead to 23-16. On the next serve, the Cannoneers would have a service error followed by an attacking error. Those two points would secure the second set in favor of Owens, with a final of 25-16.
The third set was another back and forth affair. Both teams traded points and possessions back and forth throughout the final set of the match. Neither team would lead by more than three points during much of the set, with Owens leading 20-17 late after a Jefferson serve out of bounds. The Express would string three points together to take a 23-17 lead and take their largest lead of the set. A kill from Tyriana Settles would set the Express up with match point, and then two points later, Arielle Snider would deliver the final kill to send the Express on to the next round, winning the set 25-19 and the match 3-0.
Owens was lead on the attack by Tyriana Settles, who had 16 kills in the match to lead all attackers. She would also have seven digs off the back row defensively. Kayla Bekier would add nine kills and tie for the team lead in digs with eight. She also led the team in service aces with the three against the Cannoneers. Fellow sophomore McKinsey Finnen also had eight kills as well in the match. Rebecca Brown would have the team lead with 33 assists total in the match. She accounted for 90% of the Express's assists. Brown also had seven digs in the match as did Raelyn Hutchison. Arielle Snider finished with six kills while Megan Dunne added five. Semira Neely and Shyah Wheeler each finished with three total blocks in the match.
Owens is now 41-4 overall on the season.
The Express now move on to the National Semifinal for NJCAA Division III tomorrow evening from the Regional Sports Complex in Rochester, Minnesota. The Express will play the winner of the match between the No. 4 seed Brookhaven and the No. 5 seed Central Lakes. Owens will be the first of the two national semifinals tomorrow with the match slated to begin at 6 PM EST. Fans can follow along here https://bit.ly/373DPke or they can buy a viewing pass at https://bit.ly/2Ko0JJs.