2017 Roster | 2017 Schedule | 2016 Final Statistics

Head coach:
• Jackie Kiecker (1st season)
 
A Year Ago:
• 8-3 MIAC (4^th) | 24-5 Overall
 
In The Postseason:
• MIAC Tournament: Bethel (L, 3-1)
 
Players To Watch:
• Brandi Blattner (Junior, Outside Hitter | 97 SP, 440 kills, 4.54 kills-per-set, 19 aces, 248 digs. … Led team and conference in kills and kills-per-set. … Second-Team AVCA All-American … First-Team AVCA All-Region … First-Team All-MIAC)
• Brittney Hanson (Senior, Setter | 91 SP, 546 Assists, 29 Aces, 245 Digs. … Led team in assists with a career-high 546. … Shared team lead with 13 double-doubles).
• Sara Lind (Senior, Middle Hitter | 85 SP, 184 Kills, .254 Attack %, 31 Digs, 51 Blocks).
• Lexi Barth (Sophomore, Outside Hitter | 210 Kills, .252 Attack %, 42 Digs, 39 Blocks).
 
By The Numbers:
• 4: The Cardinals made their fourth straight MIAC Playoff appearance in 2016, while their 24 overall wins marked the fourth straight season that Saint Mary's has won 20 or more matches. The 24 wins were the most since going 24-9 in 2013.
• 440: Brandi Blattner (Eyota, Minn.) closed out her sophomore year as the team- and conference-leader in kills (440) and kills-per-set (4.54). She recorded seven matches of 20 or more kills—including three matches of 28 or more kills.
• 1,082: Brittney Hanson (Janesville, Iowa) and Lillian Braun (Mantorville, Minn.) accounted for 1,082 of the team's 1,271 assists a year ago. Hanson finished with a career-high 546 during her junior campaign—including 16 matches of 20 or more assists—while Braun chipped in 482 helpers in her first year in a Cardinal uniform.
 
Did You Know?:
• The Cardinals had a season-high four players record double-doubles against Gustavus on Oct. 29. Brandi Blattner (Eyota, Minn.) added 17 digs to her match-high 21 kills; Brittney Hanson (Janesville, Iowa) and Lillian Braun (Mantorville, Minn.) finished with 16 and 14 digs to go along with their 29 and 20 assists; and Morgan Thomas (Palos Park, Ill.) tallied 18 digs and 10 assists.
 
Off The Court:
• Along with five student-athletes—Brandi Blattner (Eyota, Minn.), Gloria Kitange (Rochester, Minn.), Brittney Hanson (Janesville, Iowa), Maddie Hess (Lewiston, Minn.), and Sara Lind (Peterson, Minn.)—being named to the Academic All-MIAC Team, the Cardinals also earned the 2016-2017 AVCA Team Academic Award.
 
This and That:
• The Cardinals boasted a pair of players named to the All-MIAC First-Team—Brandi Blattner (Eyota, Minn.) and Morgan Thomas (Palos Park, Ill.). … Saint Mary's closed out the MIAC regular-season with an 8-3 record, earning the conference's No. 4 seed in the post-season tournament for the second straight year. … Blattner, who led the Cardinals in kills in 24 of their 29 matches last season, set a single-match school record in the rally scoring era with 31 kills against Bethel on Oct. 21. The 31 kills were two better than her previous career-high 29, recorded against Central-Iowa on Sept. 9. … Blattner's 31 and 29 kills are the most by a Cardinal since Molli Dant recorded 29 in a four-set match against Wartburg on Oct. 31, 2002. … Blattner's 440 kills last season rank No. 5 all-time, eight kills back of Ashley Dingels' 448 kills in 2004. … Lexi Barth (Bryon, Minn.) finished the year second to Blattner in kills with 210—including a career-high 18 kills against Gustavus on Oct. 28—while Sara Lind (Peterson, Minn. / 184) and Molly Urban (Roseville, Minn. / 131) also eclipsed the 100-kill plateau. … Brittney Hanson (Janesville, Iowa) and Lillian Braun (Mantorville, Minn.) shared the setting duties for the Cardinals all season, with Hanson dishing out a team-high 546 helpers, while Braun added 482 in her first year as a Cardinal. … Hanson posted a season-high 31 assists in the Cardinals' 3-0 win over Penn State-Behrend on Oct 8 and closed out the season with 29 assists in two of the team's final three matches. … Blattner and Hanson shared the team lead with 13 double-doubles. … Along with her 482 assists, Braun owned a team-leading 47 aces, four more than Thomas. The duo were two of four Cardinals with 20 or more aces this season. … The Cardinals boasted four players—Braun, Thomas, Blattner, and Maddie Hess (Lewiston, Minn.)—who served up five or more aces in a match this season. Thomas notched a season- and career-high seven aces in Saint Mary's 3-1 win over Rowan on Oct. 8. … Thomas' seven aces are the most in a match since Megan Roesler and Lisa Engdahl served up seven aces during the 2005 season. … Hess posted a season- and career-high 30 assists in the Cardinals' 3-0 win over Alverno on Sept. 16, while notching a career-high four blocks in the Cardinals' Sept. 24 loss to St. Thomas. …  Thomas' 10 assists against Gustavus on Oct. 29 were a career high. …The Cardinals had five players finish the season with 100 or more digs, led by Thomas with 514—including the team's top five single-match dig performances. Thomas posted a season-high 32 digs against Dubuque on Sept. 16, recorded 31 against Central-Iowa on Sept. 9, tallied 28 against both St. Catherine on Sept. 14 and Lawrence on Sept. 17, and notched 26 vs. Nebraska-Wesleyan on Sept. 10. … Thomas' 514 digs were a single-season career high and rank sixth all-time. … Saint Mary's had a season-high five players record at least 10 digs vs. Augsburg on Oct. 12. Along with Blattner, Hanson, and Braun, the Cardinals also got 20 digs from Thomas and 15 from Clare Tack (St. Charles, Ill.). … The Cardinals had 10 different players record at least one kill in their 3-0 win over Hamline on Sept. 21. … Fifteen of the Cardinals 24 wins last season were 3-0 sweeps. Saint Mary's also owned six, four-set wins and two five-set victories. … Seventeen of the Cardinals' 24 wins, meanwhile, came via two lengthy winning streaks—one of 10 matches and the other of seven. … Saint Mary's season-opening 10-match winning streak was the second-longest in program history. … The Cardinals were a perfect 16-0 in regular-season tournament play this season—going 4-0 at the Ground Round Sugar Loaf Classic, St. Catherine Invitational, Ripon Red Hawk Invitational, and the Neumann Invitational. … Blattner and Thomas were named to the all-tournament team in each of the Cardinals' four regular-season tournaments. … Saint Mary's 4-0 run through the Ground Round Sugar Loaf Classic marked the first time the Cardinals had opened with four straight wins since 2008, when they opened 7-0.