The Jackrabbit volleyball team lost to in-state rival USD in reverse sweep fashion Tuesday night and at the Sanford Coyote Sports in Vermillion in front of
South Dakota State (4-16) got off to a hot start in the match jumping out to a 2-0 lead in sets beating the Yotes (11-8) 25-19 and 26-24 in the first two frames.
South Dakota, who sits at fourth in the Summit League standings, powered back in the last three sets to claim the victory in five.
The two teams rolled out significantly younger teams than in year past which was highlighted by Head Coach Dan Georgalas before the match Tuesday.
“We’ve got a lot of freshmen in our starting lineup and so do they, so just, the makeup of our two teams kind of feels different for the first time” Georgalas said, “we’ve we’ve both kind of had some senior laden teams on the last couple years so we’re excited to play them and then to home games.”
Freshman Sylvie Zgonc led both squads with a total of 26 kills. She averages 3.46 per set which is third in the conference. USD’s Madison Harms followed her up with 16.
Libero Stella Winterfeld paced SDSU with 11 digs while Raegen Reilly had 25 assists. SDSU rankes fourth and third in those categories respecivly.
Now with half their conference schedule over with, the Jacks look to refocus on their next two opponents with games taking place Thursday and Saturday in Brookings.
“Three matches in five days coming off the road trip is certainly tough.” Georgalas said. “It’s kind of fun to have three matches in five days a little bit less training this week and we just kind of get to focus on playing free and having fun.”
Both of the Jackrabbits opponents this week played each other Tuesday night with Kansas City sweeping St. Thomas in straight sets.
The Tommies will come into Frost Arena with a 5-14 record sitting in the basement of the Summit. Kansas City is the best team in the conference having only lost 4 matches all season long.
SDSU has played both of these schools once already this season sweeping St. Thomas and losing in 5 sets to the Roos.
“It’s certainly different, a caveat of the schedule.” said Georgalas. “We’ll play St. Thomas and Kansas City twice even before we played North Dakota once so we’re excited.”
St. Thomas’ junior hitter Libby Mattila totaled a career high 11.5 points against the Roos Tuesday recording 9 kills, an ace, a solo block and a block assist.
The Roos kills leader Odyssey Warren totaled 9 kills as well. Kansas City is second in the Summit averaging 12.79 of them per set.
The Tommies will be in Brookings Thursday before heading down I-29 to take on Omaha in Nebraska.
Kansas City will have Thursday off before they matchup with the Jacks Saturday in Frost Arena.
Both of the matchups will be streamed live on The Summit League Network with Thursdays match beginning at 7 p.m. and Saturdays at 1 p.m.
