KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The University of North Dakota volleyball team defeated Kansas City, 3-2 (25-18, 25-20, 26-28, 18-25, 15-10) on Saturday afternoon to cap off a perfect weekend on the road. 

With the victory, UND improves to 12-11 overall and 9-3 in league play to sit in fourth. The Fighting Hawks hold a five-game lead on the sixth-and-final spot in the postseason with just six matches remaining in the regular season. The four-match win streak for NoDak puts the green and white over .500 for the first time since Oct. 4, 2019. 

Ashlyn Olson drove the offense for the Hawks, registering a career-high 20 kills on 41 swings to lead everyone and post a whopping .415 hitting percentage. Maddie Lipetzky also finished with double-digit kills with 11 on 22 swings while Sierra Ward nearly hit the 10-kill plateau with nine. 

Elizabeth Norris notched yet another double-double and nearly made it a triple-double, finishing with 22 assists and 14 digs to go alongside her eight kills. Peyton Sewell also did a nice job setting the offense up with 19 assists and 11 digs to also pick up a double-double. 

Both sides traded points early in the first set, but North Dakota created some separation in the middle of the frame with a 5-1 run to grab a 19-15 lead following an Olson kill. The momentum continued for NoDak, with Olson firing down two more kills to polish off the 25-18 victory and a 1-0 lead for the visitors. 

The second set was more North Dakota, with the green and white jumping out to a 9-5 lead before extending that advantage to 16-11 following back-to-back kills from Olson. Lipetzky helped push the lead to as high as six, 19-13, but Kansas City started a rally of its own to close the gap to 20-18. That was as close as the Roos would get, however, with Norris, Marissa Stockman and a trio of errors by the hosts gave UND the 25-20 victory and a 2-0 advantage heading to the intermission. 

Kansas City would not go quietly, jumping out to a lead as high as six in the third set, but UND mounted a rally of its own to chip away at the advantage. After fighting off three straight set points, the Hawks tied the match at 24-24 before Ward recorded a kill followed by an ace to flip the score to a 26-25 UND lead. The Roos responded with a 3-0 run of their own to take the set, 28-26. 

Much like North Dakota did on Thursday at Oral Roberts, the Roos outscored the Fighting Hawks 12-4 over the final 16 points of the fourth set to send the match to a tiebreaking frame with a 25-18 victory. 

In the fifth set, both sides were trading points in the early portion of the frame, but it was another big scoring run by UND that proved to be the difference. With the score deadlocked at 9-9, a pair of kills by Olson sandwiched between a Maddy Hornyak ace and a block from Stockman and Ward gave the Hawks a 13-9 lead and force a KC timeout. Out of the break, Olson and Norris put the finishing touches on the victory with a pair of kills to close out the 15-10 win. 

North Dakota returns to action on Tuesday against league-leading South Dakota from the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center at 7 p.m. 

Postgame Notes

• UND has now won back-to-back five set matches, its first two of the season and first since 2019.
• The Hawks are riding a season-long four-game winning streak
• NoDak is over .500 for the first time since Oct. 4, 2019 
• Olson's 20 kills are a career high 
• Norris now has at least a double-double in three straight matches 

How It Happened

• Set 1: North Dakota 25, Kansas City 18
• Set 2: North Dakota 25, Kansas City 20
• Set 3: Kansas City 28, North Dakota 26
• Set 4: Kansas City 25, North Dakota 18
• Set 5: North Dakota 15, Kansas City 10