Valley City State's volleyball team opened the Corn Palace Classic with a two-match split Friday in Mitchell, S.D.

VCSU won it's opening match, a five-set thriller against Johnson & Wales University. In the second match of the day the Vikings came out on the short end of a three-set match with Presentation College. The Vikings are now 3-3 to start the season.

VCSU plays two more matches Saturday in Mitchell, matching up with host Dakota Wesleyan at 10:30 a.m. and Grace University at 2 p.m. Both matches will have live stats and live video at http://portal.stretchinternet.com/vcsu/

VCSU 3, Johnson & Wales 2
The Vikings went all five sets in their opening match against Johnson & Wales. VCSU won the first two sets by scores of 25-21 and 25-19. Johnson & Wales rallied with wins in the next two sets, 25-21 and 25-23. But the Vikings regained the momentum and won set five, 15-12.

Kanani Auwae led the Viking attack with 16 kills in the match. Rachel Hummel added nine kills and Autumn Johnson had eight. Chelzie-Kristina Ulu came up with six kills and 3.5 blocks.

Setter Steph Miller served up eight aces in the match and had 24 assists. Taylor Balkan added 19 assists. Jaycee George had 26 digs and 23 receptions, while Hailie Wilds led the team with 27 receptions.

VCSU outhit Johnson & Wales .178 to 1.05 in the match. That included an impressive .500 hitting percentage for VCSU in the opening set.

Presentation College 3, VCSU 0
The Vikings could not complete the two-match sweep Friday as they fell in straight sets to Presentation College.

The first two sets went extra points as the Saints won 26-24, 29-27 and 25-17.

Tyler Bulawa and Seri Geisler each had six kills to lead VCSU. Steph Miller had 20 assists and three aces. Jaycee George led the defense with 22 digs.

Presentation College out-hit the Vikings .161 to .118 and out-blocked the Vikings 9-4.