Last Friday and Saturday the SDSU volleyball team traveled to Illinois to play in the Bradley Invitational.
SDSU won against Eastern Illinois on Friday and then beat Bradley on Saturday. The Jacks now move to 8-0 on the season.
“We’re winning tight moments,” said head coach Dan Georgalas regarding the team’s 8-0 start. “We’re being challenged. We’re being pushed. We’re winning sloppy, and I think that’s a good sign of a good team. We don’t need to play perfect to win a match. And I think our team is doing that really well right now.”
In the first match, SDSU registered a season-high ten aces compared to Eastern Illinois’s one ace. Not only did SDSU hold the advantage in this statistic, but they also edged out Eastern Illinois in every statistic in the match.
Sophomore Sylvie Zgonc led the way in match one by leading the team in kills with 15 and digs with 13. She also added a pair of aces and one block.
The graduate student Alyssa Groves and the redshirt junior Sydni Schetnan both tallied up seven kills and one block each. Rylee Martin and Camryn Honn also helped the offense by dishing out 16 assists each.The Jacks started the tournament on the right foot getting the team’s fourth sweep of the year against Eastern Illinois. SDSU won both the first set (25-15) and the second set (25-17) in a convincing fashion. In the third set, Eastern Illinois put up a fight but fell just short (25-23).
In the second and final match of the weekend, SDSU’s defense came into play. The Bradley Braves were held to a .052 hitting percentage. The Jacks also forced Bradley to commit 31 attack errors.
The Sioux Falls, South Dakota native Schetnan recorded ten total blocks in the second match, and she set a program record with seven solo blocks. The communications major also added 12 kills to her stellar stat line.
Schetnan said, “I think I’ve kind of settled into my role a little bit more, especially from switching from right side to middle mid-season last year. I’ve learned a little bit more about what it means to be a middle. So being able to understand that a little more I’ve definitely settled into that.”
The sophomore Zgonc once again ended the match with 15 kills which was enough to surpass the 500 career kills mark. She is now averaging 4.55 kills per set.
Martin and Honn again both reached double-digit assists with 23 and 14 respectively.
Sophomore Joslyn Richardson also helped stuff the stat sheet for the jacks by recording a match high17 digs.
While the second match against Bradley wasn’t a sweep SDSU still showed out and took the match 3-1. Just like the first match, the Jacks took convincing wins in sets one and two (25-15) and (25-14). Set three was a wake-up call for the Jackrabbits losing in a close set to the tournament hosts (23-25). Then in the fourth set, the team held off Bradley and defeated them in a close-fought battle (25-21).
SDSU will now host the Jackrabbit Invitational at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls next Thursday through Saturday.
This Thursday, they will open the tournament against Idaho State at 7:00 PM.
