MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – Junior libero Alexis Dacosta surpassed 500 career digs and Auburn (6-1, 0-0) got nine kills apiece from Lauren Dreves and Madison Scheer but it wasn’t enough to get past Minnesota (3-3, 0-0) as the Tigers fell for the first time in 2024, 3-0 (25-21, 25-22, 25-16).
The Golden Gophers jumped out to an early lead thanks to a bit of tough serving. Brent Crouch’s crew wouldn’t go away that easily, though.
Behind two aces from Dacosta and one from Lauren Dreves, the Tigers clawed their way back into the set.
Dreves was particularly brilliant. Five kills on .333 hitting was part of the reason Auburn drew within two, 23-21, late in the frame.
While Minnesota closed out the first, the Orange and Blue carried belief and momentum into the second set.
Opening on a 5-0 run with Dreves at the service line, the Auburn defense began flying around to allow kills from Bella Bell and Madison Scheer.
Speaking of defense, junior libero Alexis Dacosta (8 digs) reached 500 for her career.
Strong serving from the home side, though, brought Minnesota back into the set. When the Tigers’ serve-receive was good, Auburn’s offense met the challenge. Madison Scheer added five kills in the second frame alone. The Eureka, Missouri native would tie Dreves with a team-high nine kills for the match.
Even down, 24-18, the resilient Tigers rattled off four-straight points, keeping points alive, getting kills from Dreves and a mighty rejection from Chelsey McCurdy and Bel Zimmerman.
However, Multiple scoring runs proved too much for Crouch and Co. to overcome as the Golden Gophers took the 2-1 lead.
Set No. 3 featured more of the same from Minnesota. Serving runs made life difficult for the Tigers as the home side hit its best percentage of the evening.
Still, Auburn refused to give up. Down by as many as 14 points, the Tigers continued to fight, outscoring the Golden Gophers 13-8 throughout the rest of the set.
In the end, the deficit was just too insurmountable as Auburn dropped its first match of the season.
Match Notes
>> Lakin Laurendine made her Auburn debut
>> Alexis Dacosta reached 500 digs for her career
>> Emma Moore had five blocks, the freshman has had at least four in four of the seven matches she’s played in
>> Lauren Dreves (11 digs) reached double digits for the sixth time in seven matches
What Crouch had to say…
“Once the ball started to get back over the net, back and forth, in transition and even on first ball when we were serving, we played very good defense. That second set in particular, we held them to .091. That is just an incredibly good serving team. Everyone that I’ve talked to who's played them has said that’s the best serving team they’ve seen. It looked like that on video. It’s really tough to be a team that’s serving like that. We had some good runs but there’s also some room to grow there. But I love where we are at this point of the year.”