By Luke Pader/ Sports Reporter/ San Bernardino Ca

-The St. Cloud volleyball team got the season started off with a bang over the weekend finishing 3-1 in their matches with wins over the #12, #8, and #1 team in the preseason coaches poll. The showdown began on Thursday with a battle against #21 Cal Poly Pomona. The Huskies had some great individual performances including senior outside hitter Kenzie Foley finishing with 16 kills and 14 digs along with Junior Middle Blocker Ella Thompson adding 11 kills in her Huskies debut. But it wasn’t enough to overcome the self-inflicted wounds the Huskies caused themselves as they fell 3-0 in their season opener.

With the competition only getting tougher it would’ve been easy to mail it in, but the Huskies had no interest in that. With two matches on Friday against #12 Charminade and then #8 Cal State San Bernardino the Huskies needed their leaders to set the tone, and they did just that. Kenzie Foley had a pair of 18 kill double doubles, Senior Libero Keely Kurschner had 13 digs against Charminade and then 11 assists and 15 digs against San Bernardino, but the star of the show was Junior Setter Emma Berran who piled up 39 assists in each of the two matches adding 10 and 11 digs for back to back double doubles. These performances combined with cleaning up some of the errors brought the Huskies two, four-set victories over these top ranked teams.

Still the biggest challenge was on Saturday when the Huskies closed out their weekend going toe to toe with the defending national champions in Cal State LA. Once again the stars shone bright for St. Cloud Kenzie Foley put together her 4th double double of the weekend with 16 kills and 10 digs and Emma Berran finished with 38 assists and 13 digs leading the Huskies to the 3-1 victory. This match was the second straight win for St. Cloud over the #1 team in the nation after defeating #1 Wayne State in last year’s NSIC Tournament.

Kenzie Foley was named NSIC Player of the Week for her effort over a weekend that Head Coach Chad Braegelmann called a chance to learn what it takes to play with the best.

Next Up: St. Cloud is back in action on Thursday kicking off the Up North Tournament against Findlay at 11:30 am. That match will be broadcast live on 97.5 RadioX with Carl Goenner on the call.

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