Last week, the South Dakota State Jackrabbits beat the Omaha Mavericks and the Roos of Kansas City to advance to 22-0 on the season.
“We knew that was gonna be a battle, especially on the road,” said setter Sophie Johnson. “They’re a good team, they have been. We were lucky enough to win the first set, and then the second set definitely didn’t go our way but I was really proud of our group and how we responded in the next two sets.”
Sylvie Zgonc added to her kill total with 13 kills on the night. She also had another double-double on the season, adding 14 digs to her kill total. She led the Jackrabbits in both statistics.
Another sophomore with a double-double on the night was the setter Rylee Martin, who recorded 21 assists and 10 digs.
Johnson and Zgonc weren’t the only Jackrabbits with impressive performances on the night. Katie Van Egdom matched her season high in kills with nine, Madison Burr had eight kills and Alyssa Groves tallied six kills.
Burr was just as important on the defensive side as she was on the offensive side. She recorded seven blocks to go along with her near double-digit kills.
In set one, the Jacks fell down 5-10 early but came storming back to win set one 25-19.
In the second set of the night, the Jackrabbits once again had an early deficit, this time 8-1. Omaha continued their aggression throughout the set and beat the Jacks 25-12.
The pattern continued in set three as the Jacks found themselves down 9-12, but after a run of seven straight points for the Jacks, they took a 25-20 win in the set to lead 2-1 in the match.
In the fourth set, SDSU got out to a 9-2 lead and went on to win 25-16 and the match 3-1.
Kansas City
After the trip to Omaha, the Jacks visited Kansas City last Saturday to play the Roos. After a 3-0 sweep of the Roos, they left Kansas City with a 22-0 record.
Zgonc once again had a good night hitting, racking up 16 kills and eight digs.
A couple of other Jackrabbit hitters came close to putting up double-digit kills. Van Egdom notched eight kills, Grove put up seven and Sydni Schetnan added seven of her own.
Both of the Jackrabbit setters had a good match, with Camryn Honn notching 19 assists and Martin following closely with 17.
Set one and set three stayed relatively close at 25-21 (set one) and 25-20 (set three). SDSU finished the second with a dominant 25-15 performance over the Roos.
“To even get a road sweep against Kansas on Saturday and not drop a set at all just helps our momentum and confidence going into three straight home matches,” said Dan Georgalas on the previous road matches.
St. Thomas
SDSU will host St. Thomas on Thursday at 7 p.m. in First Bank & Trust Arena.
SDSU will go into this match hoping to keep their undefeated season alive behind Zgonc and her Summit League-leading 361 kills.
St. Thomas will head into this match trying to improve on their 14-10 season record and 6-6 conference record.
They are led by sophomore setter Kealy Morgan, who has a total of 861 assists on the season, which is second in the Summit League.
When it comes to scoring, the Tommies have a solid duo with their combined points coming out to 600. Junior Tezra Rudzitis accounts for 304 of those points and Lauren Galvin accounts for the other 296 of those points.
Defensively, the team is led by middle blocker Meagan Wetter who had tallied up 80 blocks on the season. Alongside Wetter, Ella Voegele has 432 digs on the year.
NDSU
SDSU will host NDSU on Saturday at 1:00 pm.
The Bison will be coming off a matchup against the USD Coyotes in Vermillion before they head to Brookings to take on the Jacks.
Depending upon the outcome of the game against the Coyotes, NDSU will either go into the game Saturday 11-11 or 10-12, trying to put themselves into contention in the Summit League.
Senior outside hitter Ali Hinze leads the Bison in scoring with 305 total points with 264 of those points coming on kills.
Defensively, Hinze also leads the team in digs with 224, and the leader in blocks is sophomore Arianna Blohm with 65 total blocks.