Box Score SALISBURY, Md.- UW-Oshkosh women's volleyball, a semifinalist in each of the last two NCAA Division III Championships, opened its 2025 season at the Salisbury University (Md.) Margie Knight Classic on Friday (August 29) by facing Thiel College (Pa.).
 
The Titans (1-0), ranked sixth in the American Volleyball Coaches Association's preseason poll, never allowed the Tomcats (0-1) to reach 20 points in a set, defeating Thiel by set scores of 25-18, 25-18, 25-11.
 
UW-Oshkosh held edges in every major statistical category except for blocks with 59 total points to Thiel's 30, 46 kills to Thiel's 18, eight aces to Thiel's five, 41 assists to Thiel's 17, and 45 digs to Thiel's 33. The Tomcats blocked seven attacks while the Titans blocked five.
 
With a .354 attack percentage, the Titans committed 12 errors on 96 attacks with 42 kills while holding Thiel to just .035 with 18 kills and 15 errors on 86 attacks.
 
Samantha Perlberg (Chippewa Falls/Chippewa Falls) and Grace Juergens (Lockport, Ill./Lockport Community) surpassed double digit kills in Oshkosh's first match of the year at 17 and 14 respectively. Perlberg registered 19 points and a .433 attack percentage while Juergens tallied 15 points and a .367 attack percentage.
 
Izzy Coon (Fond du Lac/St. Mary's Springs Academy) paced UW-Oshkosh with 26 assists, 10 digs, and four aces while Emmy Wizceb (Sullivan/Johnsburg (Ill.)), Riley Borrowman (Oswego, Ill./Oswego), and Maren Motz (Hartland/Arrowhead Union) each notched a pair of blocks.
 
The Tomcats served an ace to begin the match and the Titans responded with five consecutive points to flip the lead. Oshkosh never let Thiel within three points for the remainder of the set, building its edge with a 5-point run to make the score 11-3 and a 7-point run to increase the lead to 20-9. The Tomcats used a pair of 3-0 spurts to pull within six points, however two kills by Perlberg with assists from Coon sealed the first set at 25-18.
 
At the start of the second set the teams traded points with an Oshkosh lead thanks to Juergens' set-opening kill. A service error gave the Titans the serve which they used to score nine straight points and claim a 14-4 lead. Thiel twice brought the score within six points midway through set two, however the deficit was too large, and Oshkosh outlasted multiple runs of at least three points to take a 2-0 set lead. Perlberg and Coon again worked together to put an emphatical final point on the set.
 
Juergens recorded two kills and Perlberg and Motz each had one for the first four points of set three to hand UW-Oshkosh another early lead. The Tomcats clawed back within a point at 7-6 with an ace before Juergens notched three straight kills and Borrowman recorded an ace to once again pad the lead. Thiel scored a point on the next serve before the Titans went right back to running up the score with six more points in a row. Four of the points in the streak were kills, one was an ace, and the last was an unforced error. Oshkosh slowly built up to an 11-point edge at 21-10 before following Thiel's final point of the match with four straight points. Hannah Moe (Oconto/Oconto) and Borrowman combined for a block to secure the team's first sweep of the year.
 
The Titans will face Penn State Altoona and host Salisbury on Saturday (August 30) at noon and 4 p.m. Eastern Time.