NORTHERN DEFEATS DEFENDING NSIC CHAMPS

Sept. 15, 2001

DRAGON SLAYERS -- NSU's Lindsey Ono (left), Stephanie Tschetter (14), Shanna Dahl (7) and Molly Veenhof celebrate a point against 2001 defending NSIC Conference champ Minnesota State-Moorhead.

Northern State opened the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference season in impressive fashion, defeating defending conference champ Minnesota State-Moorhead 3-1 (30-23, 30-20, 21-30, 30-21) Saturday at home. The victory, before 401 fans on NSU's parent's day, extended NSU's winning streak to six matches.

The match, originally scheduled to be played Friday, was moved back to Saturday after NSU's match with Minnesota-Crookston was postponed late in the week. All schools in the University of Minnesota system canceled or postponed their games for the weekend due to the national tragedy. A moment of silence was observed before the match for all those lost in the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.

Northern (7-5, 1-0) was led by the middle blocking tandem of senior Shanna Dahl (St. Cloud, Minn.) and junior Christi Lucas (White, S.D.). Dahl led NSU in kills with 13, while Lucas was right behind with 12 kills on a .385 hitting percentage. Lucas also had seven blocks on the afternoon. Juniors Molly Veenhof (Huron) and Kim Heny (Northwest Junior College, Powell, Wyo.) tallied 12 and 11 kills, respectively. Defensively, junior Stephanie Tschetter (Huron) led the team with 16 digs to go with nine kills. Freshman setter Lindsey Ono (Omaha, Neb.) registered 39 set assists. MSUM (5-8, 0-1) was led by Keri Kruezer's 13 kills.