Pioneers 3... Williston State 1 (25-18, 22-25, 25-23, 26-24)

The MCC Pioneers found themselves in a 3-game losing streak including going 0-2 to start the MonDak Conference volleyball season. Williston State College came to the MCC Centra in what seemed to be a must win scenario for the Pioneers on Tuesday night. The Pioneers dug deep and found a way to pull out a tightly contested match to pick up that elusive 1st win of conference season and gave Williston State it's 1st loss of the conference slate. 

MCC got off to a shaky start in game 1 as they had their 1st two service opportunities sail past the endline as the Tetons built a quick 4-2 lead. The Pioneer got the train back on the tracks and took a 8-7 lead before building that bulge to 14-8. They stayed in command of game one for the rest of the way and won 25-18. 

Williston quickly took command of game 2 and took a 7-13 lead before the 1st Pioneer timeout of the game. WSC built as much as a 7-point lead (19-12) before the Pioneers closed the gap to 20-23 but the Tetons closed out game 2 by the score of 22-25. 

The crucial game 3 was tightly contested from start to finish and and the Pioneers took a 2-1 lead with a 25-23 win. Game 4 looked like it was going to go the way of the Tetons and force a deciding 5th game as WSC took a 11-15 lead. The Pioneers closed the gap quickly and tied the game at 17-17. It was back and forth until the Tetons had game point at 23-24 but could not capitalize as MCC won the final 3 points of the game to win 26-24.

Zeason Schaffer (Sophomore - Broadus, MT) put away 17 kills and Johanna Limberhand (Freshman - Hardin, MT) accounted for 12 more kills. Taiya Guptill (Freshman - Hardin, MT) had 35 assists and 3 service aces. Defensively, MCC got 14 digs from Cameron Blevins (Sophomore - Shelby, MT) and 2 blocks each from Limberhand and Grace Gackle (Sophomore - Circle, MT). 

The Pioneers are now 8-7 overall and 1-2 in MonDak Conference play. They travel to winless Dakota College at Bottineau Wednesday night at 6:00 PM MDT.