The South Dakota State volleyball team kicked off their Summit League Conference season this week on the road.  

The Jackrabbits headed north with hopes of ending their five-game losing streak and securing a much-needed win.  

“It definitely wasn’t an easy preseason,” freshman Stella Winterfeld said. “It pushed us and kind of exposed some things that we now know we need to work on and things to get better at for conference.”  

On Thursday, the Jackrabbits faced off against the St. Thomas Tommies for the first time since Nov. 3, 2022. The sets were close throughout, but the Jacks were able to come out on top sweeping the Tommies 3-0 and putting an end to the streak of losses.  

Katie Van Egdom led SDSU with 16 kills, both team highs, paired with Sylvie Zgonc’s 10 kills and 14 digs on the night. Raegen Reilly added 36 assists for the Jacks along with 9 digs of her own. 

“Road wins are never easy, it doesn’t matter the opponent,” said head coach Dan Georgalas. “We kind of got the monkey off our back, and to have a nice moment in the locker room afterward was a feeling we hadn’t had in a while.”  

South Dakota State then traveled south to compete against Kansas City on Saturday. The Jacks fell short in the first two sets but were able to claw their way back into the game after taking sets three and four. Unfortunately, the match did not fall in favor of SDSU and the Roo’s finished victorious stealing the fifth match 17-15.  

Similar to the previous game, Van Egdom and Zgonc combined for 41 kills. Reilly put up 52 assists in the match. Winterfeld tallied 25 digs paired with 5 aces from Rylee Martin.  

“We didn’t get the result, but our grit, our resilience, our fight, our belief was just absolutely tremendous,” Georgalas said.  

The Jackrabbits closed out the opening week of conference play going 1-1. SDSU will return home for their first game this season in Frost Arena on Thursday at 7 p.m. against Denver, who is currently on a 6-match win streak.