Box Score In an epic 5-set battle between two quality teams, The Master's women's volleyball team lost to the Morningside (IA) Mustangs in the first match of the CSM Labor Day Classic in Omaha, Nebraska. Friday.
The Lady Mustangs (4-1) had more kills than Morningside (65-64), but committed more attack errors (28-24) to hit .187 in the 21-25, 27-25, 25-19, 20-25, 13-15 loss. Defensively TMU tallied nine blocks while giving up six.
"Obviously I don't like losing, but obviously it's a lesson on what we have to learn," said Head Coach
McKenna Hafner. "And the biggest thing we learned is how we touch the ball really matters. I thought we fought and struggled through it, but I don't think we were adaptable enough to what the other team was doing or even our own game."
TMU only had one lead in the first set, and that was early. A kill from Kinsley Kollman gave the Mustangs from California a 4-3 lead, but then the Iowa Mustangs went on a 5-0 run to take the lead for good. The closest The Master's got was two points (14-12) before Morningside finished it off for the 4-point win.
The Iowa Mustangs opened up a 10-6 lead in the second set, but four straight points from the California crew, evened it at 10-10. The set was a slugfest after that, with neither side getting more than a 3-point advantage. Morningside looked like they had the set at 24-21, but two kills by Kollman and another by
McKenna Brady tied it at 24-24. After the Iowa Mustangs got their second set-point 25-24, the California Lady Mustangs scored three straight, including two kills from
Macy Gebhards, to win the set 27-25.
The Lady Mustangs evened the match at 1-1, despite being out-hit by Morningside .250 to .192 in that second frame.
TMU rode the momentum into the third, riding an 11-4 run in the middle of the set to go up 19-11.
Macy Gebhards collected six kills in just this set as the lead was too much for Morningside to overcome.
The Mustangs from Iowa, needing the fourth set to keep the match alive, jumped out to a 5-2 advantage. But the California Mustangs responded, rattling off a 7-1 run to go up 9-6. Now Morningside responded, keeping the theme of this tight, back-and-forth match alive, by scoring nine in a row to go up 15-9. Once again TMU was able to claw back to get with two, but the lead was too much and Morningside evened the match at 2-2 with the 5-point set win.
"When we get in bad runs it usually comes from not being able to touch the ball well," Coach Hafner said. "The team that has the least amount of negative runs will win the match. Ultimately we had more bad ones today."
For the second time in the first five matches of the 2025 season, The Master's found themselves going to five sets to determine a winner.
And what else could we expect from these two teams but a very tight final set.
The set was tied six times with the score 6-6 when it was Morningside that claimed the advantage on a 3-0 run to go up 9-6. After a TMU timeout, the California Mustangs scored two to get to within a point, But the Iowa Mustangs responded with two of their own to go up 11-8. From there the teams traded points, with Morningside winning the set 15- to give The Master's its first loss of the season.
Macy Gebhards led the team with 16 kills followed by Kollman's 15, Bella Amet's 14 and
Krista Brady's 12.
Kate Wagner had a career-high 57 assists while also serving up a pair of aces.
Sierra Hale had a career-high 31 digs to anchor the defense, reaching the 1,000-dig mark in this match.
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