The South Dakota State Jackrabbits pulled off a reverse sweep over the Denver Pioneers to move to the Summit League Championship.
The third-seeded Pioneers got a hot start, winning the first two sets 25-23 and 25-22. The Jacks rallied back a fifth set, where they found themselves tied at 10 with DU.
The Jackrabbits scored the final five points, including a block by Sylvie Zgonc, putting SDSU in the tournament final for the second time.
“That was a roller coaster,” Jackrabbit Head Coach Dan Georgalas said. “It felt like postseason volleyball all the way. There was a lot of intensity. I just have so many compliments on how Denver came out.
Denver started with an 8-1 lead in the first set before the Jacks rattled off three straight to cut the lead to four. However, the Pioneers matched with three straight of their own to push the lead back to 11-4.
After a couple of Sylvie Zgonc and Sydni Schetnan kills, SDSU found themselves in a tight battle, trailing 19-21 and after some back-and-forth play, a Katie Van Egdom kill knotted the score at 22. SDSU finally took their first lead up 23-22, but Denver clawed back and scored three straight to take set one 23-25.
In the second set, two back-to-back Zgonc kills helped the Jacks grow a 9-6 over the Pioneers to start, but three straight Denver points would tie up the score at 9-9. After repeated back-and-forth battles for the lead, a Schetnan kill would bring the Jacks within one point with a score of 22-23. But again, another Denver run would close out the set to take a 2-0 lead.
Set three started with two kills from Schetnan, and the score was tied at two before the Jacks pushed the lead to 11-7. The set was tied again at 15 before a 3-0 run, including a Zgonc kill and a Schetnan kill, made the score 18-15.
The third set was filled with service errors. Both teams committed 11 service errors in the frame, but the Jacks led the entire third set and got a set win by a score of 25-22.
“They had a great game plan against us. It just kind of felt like they wanted it more to start,” Georgalas said. “But man did we make a response and winning the third and playing with a lot of heart and passion just flipped the momentum of the match.”
The fourth set started with a 3-3 tie but quickly became a 9-5 lead for the Jacks after a couple of Zgonc scores. A Madison Burr block pushed the lead to 16-8 before a 3-0 run by the Pioneers made Georgalas call a timeout to regroup the Jackrabbits.
SDSU then pushed the score out of the timeout to 19-13 before forcing a fifth set with a 25-19 victory in set four.
Zgonc and Molly Mirabelli traded two kills each to put the score at 2-2 to start the fifth and final set. Another Zgonc Kill and a Rylee Martin ace made the score 4-2 in favor of the Jacks. The Jacks found themselves in a good position, up 10-7, as Denver called a timeout.
Zgonc ended the night with a double-double, 24 kills and 11 digs. Schetnan was second in kills with 16 and added five blocks to lead the Jacks.
Annalee Ventling-Brown also had a big performance and came up with crucial moments. She ended with six kills and three blocks.
For the Pioneers, Mirabelli and Ava Reynolds paced the team with 15 and 14 kills, respectively.
The Jackrabbits will play the third-seeded Coyotes from USD tomorrow at 7 p.m. in the Summit League championship game. You can watch the match on the Summit League Network or listen to it on Collegian Sports and KSDJ Radio.
