Murphy, Mussman hit milestones

ELGIN, Ill. - Over the weekend, the Mount Mercy women's volleyball team opened up their season with wins over Trinity Christian (Ill.), Judson (Ill.) and Kuyper (Mich.) behind career-setting records from Mackenzie Murphy and Rylie Mussman. Both reached the 1,000 dig mark on Saturday, becoming the 22nd and 23rd players in Mustang history to do so.   

Murphy, an outside hitter, who is using her fifth year of eligibility due to COVID, reached this feat in 358 sets and has racked up 25 digs on the young season. She sits at 1,013 career digs. On top of her defensive performance, Murphy has accumulated 33 kills, putting her at 898 on her career. 

Mussman, a junior libero, surpassed the 1,000 mark in just 223 sets in which she has a career average of 4.53 digs per set- putting her third-all time. Mussman has 1,010 digs and counting. 

Behind this duo, Mount Mercy defeated Trinity Christian (25-22, 21-25, 25-14, 23-25, 15-10) in a back-and-forth, hard-fought five-set match to open the season. Katie Kopriva led the way with 16 kills on a .467 attack percentage against the Trolls. Murphy and Jenna Brown totaled 14 and 11 kills respectively. Kendall McNaull was huge at the net with four block assists and two solo blocks to lead the team. Hailey Hested was active finishing with 43 assists, 10 digs, six kills, and three aces. 

The Mustangs followed up their season debut with consecutive sweeps over Judson (25-20, 25-22, 25-23) and Kuyper (25-7, 25-8, 25-7). Murphy paced Mount Mercy against the Eagles with a 16 kill, 13 dig, double-double performance. Against the Cougars, nine different Mustangs tallied a kill, led by Brown with six. Falynn Buehler had 18 assists while Hallie Bedier had seven service aces. 

Mount Mercy heads to the Briar Cliff Tournament this weekend, Friday and Saturday, Aug. 25-26 for three more matches. The first is at 7:00 pm against Mount Marty (S.D.) on Friday before two more on Saturday with Valley City State (N.D.) at noon and host, Briar Cliff at 2:00 pm.