SALEM, Ore. – Nearly 3,000 days have passed since the No. 8-ranked Corban University Women's Volleyball program attended their first ever NAIA National Tournament Final Site in November of 2016, and thanks to a three-set sweep of RV University of Mobile earlier this evening in the 2024 NAIA Opening Round, the streak will continue to grow as the Warriors clinched a ninth-consecutive final site appearance at the C.E. Jeffers Sports Center. The Navy and Gold were able to snap the Rams' 14-game winning streak in convincing fashion via 25-20, 25-18, and 25-23 set scores, as it took a complete team effort to defeat the Southern State Athletic Conference's (SSAC) regular season and tournament champions to punch their ticket to Sioux City, Iowa once again.
"I couldn't be prouder of our team for advancing to the top 24 of the NAIA National Championships," Corban head coach Kim McLain detailed regarding their ninth-straight Opening Round victory. We battled against a very talented and well-coached team! Mobile was strong offensively and put pressure on us at the service line. I am proud of our team staying focused as well as playing one point at a time, knowing we could not let up. As we move forward, we'll keep focusing on our hard work and take it one day at a time."
In the opening matchup between the Warriors (24-5) and Rams (31-5) in their respective program histories, it was the host institution who took advantage of a contest played out on their home court with over 300 Warrior Nation fans in attendance Saturday evening, as the team clicked from the opening serve and had only momentary lapses in scoring on their way to a three-set sweep in the NAIA Opening Round for a third-consecutive season.
Mobile made things difficult for Corban to kick off the opening set, trading side-outs back and forth before the Warriors scored four-straight points to earn a 10-7 lead and force the Rams into an early timeout situation. Despite a brief stretch where Mobile cut the lead to a single point on two separate occasions, the Navy and Gold awoke to complete an 18-kill set out of their 25 points scored, the most kills either team would clinch in a single set all night long.
The second set wasn't nearly as easy for Corban to establish consistency against their championship-winning adversary, as the Rams exchanged lengthy scoring streaks with the Warriors before a 16-16 tie was broken with six-consecutive points for the opening round hosts. With a comfortable lead now established, Corban women's volleyball was able to cruise to a 25-18 second set victory and hold a 2-0 set advantage.
Unwilling to depart from Oregon without a fighting effort, Mobile jumped out to an impressive 6-1 lead to start the third set and even forced Coach McLain into calling one of her two timeouts just seven rallies into the period, as over half of the Rams' points were handed out via Corban attacking errors. Slowly but surely, the Navy and Gold chipped away at their deficit, and eventually knotted the set at 16-all before Mobile called their final timeout at 18-16, Warriors.
At 24-20, the Rams put together one final ditch effort to pull within a single rally of forcing extra points in the third, yet a service error just long of the Corban baseline clinched the three-set sweep for the Navy and Gold and saw the Warriors' bench rush Tim Hills Court one last time in 2024.
The Warriors' defensive pressure restricted the NAIA's eleventh-best offense in terms of kills per set (13.63 k/s) to just 34 kills in their three-set affair, holding them to 11.33 kills per set on just a mere .153 team kill percentage while the Navy and Gold secured 44 kills (14.67 k/s) on a .204 attacking clip. Ironically, the Rams' out-blocked Corban's seventeenth-highest blocking defense 6-5, yet were unable to make up for their offensive deficiencies to keep their season alive.
The starting front row rotation consisting of sophomore outside hitter Emma Bischoff and junior opposite hitter Makayla Roginski had their way with the Mobile defenders today, with Bischoff clinching her thirteenth double-double of the 2024 season with a game-best 13 kills and added ten digs in the backcourt. Roginski tacked on ten more kills to join Bischoff as the only student-athletes with double-digit kill counts and each attacked over .290 on the evening, along with seven more kills with no errors for a .538 kill percentage via the brutal swing of redshirt junior middle blocker Jadah Schmidtke.
The clean assists dealt out by junior setter Abby Guindy and sophomore setter Nadeiah Howard allowed the Corban attackers to find the floorboards so consistently this evening, as Guindy's game-high 23 dimes along with 15 more from Howard kept the Rams guessing on the block during every rally.
A career-high four service aces by sophomore outside hitter Kendra Bittle provided her team with a jolt of energy at key moments throughout tonight's match, including back-to-back that highlighted their third-set comeback. Meanwhile in the backcourt, senior libero Marissa Uehara set the game-high mark in digs with 14 on the night, while Howard and Bittle added eight and six, respectively.
The Rams were led offensively by their SSAC Player of the Year, middle blocker Dazsha Dean Middleton, who committed just a single error this evening while compiling nine kills and six block assists. All-around setter Layton Adams pitched in seven kills, 15 assists, eight digs, and six block assists in a well-rounded effort, while middle blocker Emily Osborne and outside hitter Aspen Adams added six kills apiece, with Aspen falling one dig shy of double-digits (9).
Setter Tatum Beech assisted on a team-high 17 kills with four digs in the backcourt, with libero Jaci Drinnon tying Uehara for the game-best mark in digs with 14 of her own. Additionally, Aspen Adams added to her all-around effort with Mobile's only two service aces of the match.
Tomorrow at 1pm CT/11am PT, the Warriors will have their pool play opponents revealed by the NAIA and see which seed they will represent in their respective grouping, which fans of the Corban women's volleyball team will be able to see on the program's online schedule shortly after the announcement is made by the national office.
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