Last Thursday, SDSU went to Tulsa, Okla. to open conference play against the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles.
On Saturday, SDSU then traveled to play the University of Denver.
SDSU continued their best start since 2000 by pulling off a reverse against ORU to stay undefeated through the first 12 matches.
Then they defeated Denver 3-1 to move their record to 13-0 on the season.
“I think we’ve gotten off to such a hot start because of the extra time we spent together,” said freshman Madison Burr when talking about the 13-0 start. “When we went to Brazil, we weren’t just playing volleyball we were spending time going out and doing stuff and getting to know each other. And a lot of the older girls are super good leaders and they just brought us really close together. I think the connection outside of volleyball brings us really close together.”

Oral Roberts
In the opening match of conference play on Thursday, SDSU was led in scoring by Sydni Schetnan. The redshirt freshman tallied up 17 kills and three blocks.
Sophomore outside hitter Sylvie Zgonc wasn’t far behind. Zgonc notched her eighth double-double of the year with 17 kills and 13 digs with an ace and a block to round out the stat line.
Sophomore setter Rylee Martin also stuffed the stat sheet by dishing out 45 assists with zero errors on the night.
​The Jacks defense tallied seven total blocks with four of them coming from the freshman Burr. Burr not only had a big impact defensively, but she also helped offensively with 11 kills and three aces on the night.
​“She’s been absolutely tremendous.” said head coach Dan Georgalas in regard to Burr’s performance. “She’s versatile. She can hit off one foot, she can hit off two feet. She can play middle, she can play right side, she could probably play left for us if we needed. She’s our serving middle and playing middle back defense… She’s a competitor. She’s gifted. She’s a good teammate and she’s having a really good start to her career here.”
​In the first set, SDSU got off to a fast start, jumping out to a 5-1 lead over the Golden Eagles. Oral Roberts went on a run of their own to take a 9-8 lead. The Jacks then led 18-16 before Oral Roberts took the opening set 25-23.
​In set two, ORU jumped out to a 7-4 lead over the Jacks to start. The Golden Eagles continued to flex their muscle and take an 18-12 lead. The Jackrabbits came storming back to tie the set at 22. ORU then scored three straight points to take the match 25-22.
​With their backs against the wall, the Jacks started the third set with a 6-3 lead. ORU then went on a 5-0 run to take the lead 9-7 before the jacks once again pulled ahead 15-13. After this, the Jacks didn’t look back and took the set 25-20 to force a fourth set.
​The fourth set got off to a close start, with the score being tied seven a piece. The Jackrabbits then went on an 8-3 run to take a five-point lead. SDSU took that momentum and won the set 25-16 to tie the match up two sets apiece going into the fifth and final set.
​In the fifth, the Jacks opened up the scoring with a quick 3-0 lead. The Jacks then found themselves in a close match, leading 9-7 before a 4-0 run put them up 13-7. Sylvie Zgonc then capped off the night getting the last two kills to win the set 15-9 and the match 3-2.
​The Jackrabbits managed to notch a stellar .586 hitting percentage in the final set to help propel them to a victory.
​SDSU completed their first reverse sweep since they did it against Western Illinois in 2016.
“Yeah, we give a lot of credit to Oral Roberts they had a game plan to try and attack us and executed it very well.” said Georgalas. “They forced us to make some adjustments and come from behind down 0-2. Once we got down 0-2 our group had been in these adverse situations enough to know that this isn’t ideal, we dug ourselves a hole.” But everyone was pretty calm and confident that we could come out of it and sure enough the momentum started to change, and things started to go our way. And then once we had kind of gotten that momentum back our group exerted their will in that match. They were not going to let Oral Roberts take it back from us.”
​The 12 straight wins for the Jackrabbits also match the most consecutive wins for the program since 2004.

Denver
On Saturday SDSU defeated the University of Denver 3-1 to stay undefeated and move to 13-0 on the season. The Jacks notched a .292 hitting percentage in the match which is the fourth-best mark of the season so far.
The redshirt Junior Sydnie Schetnan helped that percentage with a .619 hitting percentage along with 14 kills. Offensively, Sylvie Zgonc led the way with a team-high 17 kills while adding on five digs, three blocks, and one ace.
The two South Dakota State setters had a good night setting up their teammates. Sophomore Rylee Martin recorded 29 assists, while the graduate student Camryn Honn had 11.
Defensively, the Jackrabbits posted their third-highest block total this year with 16 in the match.
The freshman middle blocker Madison Burr once again led the way in blocks with eight. The standout freshman also added seven kills and one ace to her stat line.
Burr wasn’t the only Jackrabbit getting blocks this match. Alyssa Groves tallied seven blocks, Schetnan had five and Zgonc denied the pioneers three times.
In the first set, the Jacks got off to a little bit of a sluggish start, trailing 11-12 to Denver. The Jackrabbits then went on a quick 5-0 run to take the lead. The pioneers wouldn’t go down without a fight, making the score 16-14 with a slim SDSU lead. SDSU then pulled out to a 21-17 lead and took match one with a final score of 25-20.
The second set got off to a similar start for the Jacks, trailing 5-7 to start. The Jackrabbits came back to tie the set at 11 before they went on a 5-0 run to take a 16-11 lead. The Jacks then stretched the lead to 23-15 before taking the set 25-18 and a 2-0 lead in the match.
In set three, Denver once again took an early lead and held the Jacks off until the Jacks tied it up at 14 points apiece. The Jackrabbits then took their first lead of the set at 17-16. The pioneers once again fought back and took the lead back at 22-20. SDSU tied the set up at 24 before Denver scored two in a row to take the set 26-24 and score their first win of the match.
Set four marked the first time in the match the Jacks took an early lead with the score being 5-3. SDSU carried that momentum to a 12-8 lead over the Pioneers. Denver continually fought back within one point of the Jackrabbits, but the Jacks never took their foot off the gas and won the set 25-20 and the match 3-1 to stay undefeated.
With the win, SDSU now has four total wins in the 25 matchups against Denver.
SDSU is now one of the four undefeated teams in the country, and they will try to keep this undefeated streak when they host Kansas City in the debut of First Bank & Trust Arena, on Oct. 3 at 7:00 PM.
Head coach Georgalas is expecting a lot this Thursday night. “There is no doubt that this renovation project has elevated our program and all the other programs and the profile for this university. Our expectations and goals have been elevated as well. An attendance record would be great, but if I’m dreaming big and setting the bar really high, we want to set the Summit League all-time record for attendance in our conference… This community deserves a record like that to open First Bank & Trust Arena.”