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Huskies cross over to success
By Ben Dunsmoor
 Megan Hardy
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 Jane Backes
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After suffering a tough loss on Tuesday night to Southwest State University at Halenbeck Hall, the Husky volleyball team spent the weekend in Omaha, Neb. participating in the North Central Region Crossover Tournament.
The Huskies did well in the Crossover, which featured all of the teams from the North Central Conference, the North Sun Conference, and Michigan Tech as they came out of the weekend with a winning 2-1 record.
"It was a good opportunity to play against some teams we haven't played against and play a different game than what we face in our conference," said junior Jane Backes of the weekend's crossover. " It was nice to get some wins."
Winona State was no contest for SCSU in the first match of the weekend as State got their first win over the Warriors 4-1(26-30, 30-17, 30-23, 26-30, 15-11). As always, Kari Turkowski led the Huskies with 17 kills and added 57 sets. Sophomores Leah Herrboldt and Megan Hardy both had a good match with 15 kills and 23 digs, respectively. Junior Jane Backes also added 15 kills for St. Cloud.
Another in state rival was the next opponent for SCSU on Friday, as the Huskies battled it out against the University of Minnesota-Morris Cougars. SCSU busted out the brooms and swept the Cougars three straight games winning the match 3-0(34-32, 30-21, 30-14). Leah Herrboldt came up huge leading SCSU with 23 kills, Turkowski added 11 and Megan Hardy had 10 digs.
SCSU went an undefeated 2-0 on the first day of Crossover play, and got some confidence boosting wins. "We finally as a team learned how to bring home some wins and close the door," Turkowski said.
SCSU's final and only game on Saturday was against the University of Minnesota-Crookston, but the Huskies ended up losing a close match 3-2 (19-30, 30-28, 30-27, 25-30, 10-15). Despite the outcome of the match, Turkowski still continued to post solid stats with a triple double (40 sets, 18 kills, and 11 digs). Jane Backes had a double double in the match with a dozen kills and digs.
"It was especially tough because our team did feel that we have the potential to beat that team (UM-Crookston)," Backes said. "I think that we maybe lost focus during the game, and it was hard to come back on that, because their team really took advantage of that."
The Huskies will have to be confident this Friday when they travel to the Rocky Mountain state to take on the tough Northern Colorado Bears in their first conference match of the season. One thing the Huskies have to work on in order to have some success in the North Central Conference is playing hard from the first serve of the game.
"We can't start out slow especially in the NCC because the teams are going to come out and go," Turkowski said.
The Huskies think that they'll have a good chance against the Bears, however, if they're on top of their game,
"If we come out heads up and guns all ready to go I think that we can put up a good challenge for them [Northern Colorado] and get a win," Backes said.
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