Minnesota West advanced to the semifinals of the NJCAA Division III Women's Volleyball Tournament by winning both of their matches Thursday. The second-seeded Lady Jays blanked Bunker Hill 3-0 in dominating fashion in their first match, then recorded another 3-0 victory over Dallas College North Lake later in the day.
Minnesota West will now take on No. 11 DuPage at 6:30 p.m. tonight in a semifinal match. Should the Lady Jays win, they'll play for a national title at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.
In the match against Bunker Hill, Minnesota West won by scores of 25-6, 25-6, 25-19. It didn't take long for the Lady Jays to set the tone, as they scored the match's first five points. Soon after, with the score at 7-2, Minnesota West got nine consecutive points to erase any doubt about the game one winner.
Bunker Hill scored the first two points in the next set, but it was all Lady Jays after that. They scored the next eight points and later ran off the final nine points to close it out with Lydia Moore serving.
After having minimal errors in game one and two, the Lady Jays lost their sharpness in game three. But, up by just 15-14, Minnesota West scored six points in succession to open things up and soon finished off the 53-minute match.
Claire Bohlen led the Lady Jays with 10 kills while hitting for a .571 percentage. Ella Hesse was next in kills with eight. Lexi Schreurs passed for 36 set assists and topped Minnesota West in digs with eight. Hesse and Kadyn Paulson had seven digs each.
In serving, the Lady Jays got five aces from Moore and three from Kate Slettum while totaling 13 as a team.
Against Dallas College North Lake, Minnesota West won 25-19, 25-16, 25-14. It got off to a 5-0 start in game one for the second straight match. That lead was cut to two points twice — at 7-5 and 8-6 — but then Minnesota West began to surge and grabbed a 16-8 advantage following another Moore ace. Dallas College North Lake rallied to within 19-17, but got no closer, and Moore finished off the game with yet another ace.
Game two was back and forth early, but the Lady Jays began to slowly pull away and forced their opponents to call timeout after a Bohlen kill made it 15-9. The Lady Jays never led by less than five the rest of the way, with the game concluding on a Sadie Krahling kill.
Minnesota West would go up 5-4 in game three and then run off eight straight points to build a nine-point lead. Hesse, who had a team-best 12 kills in the match, closed out the victory with a successful attack.
Other key contributors for the Lady Jays in their second match were: Krahling and Kylee Larsen, seven kills each; Paulson with 16 digs and Moore with 12; and Schreurs with 40 set assists. The team also had a team total of 20 block assists, with Krahling and Larsen each picking up five and Raya Van Beek four.
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