BROOKINGS South Dakota State faced a little adversity on Saturday night, but the Jackrabbits were able to remain unbeaten as they defeated North Dakota in four sets at First Bank & Trust Arena.
SDSU (16-0), who is the last unbeaten team in the country, took the first two sets, but then dropped the third set to the Fighting Hawks. The Jacks responded with a dominating win in set four and stretched their win streak to 16 games.
Im super proud, said SDSU head coach Dan Georgalas. We could have panicked or stressed out, but we made a couple substitutions and in the fourth set we just went back to what we did best. We trusted that we were the better team and picked up our competitive intensity a little bit and it worked.
The Jacks trailed 9-6 in the first set but battled back and tied things at 12-12. SDSU then held a 16-14 lead and went on a 4-0 run to push the lead to 20-14. The Jacks then cruised to a 25-17 victory in the first set.
SDSU led 7-3 in the second set and the two teams traded points until the Jacks went on a 4-0 run to go up 22-14. They eventually won the set 25-20. Georgalas said his team did a nice job of defending at the net.
We had seven blocks in the first set and 10 total in the first two [sets]. We know [UND] is really fast and we had a big scout for them on just how to defend their tempo with our block and we made it really difficult for them to score right away. They had a lot of unforced errors but we forced them into a lot of errors by just being physical and we had really good block timing today, Georgalas said.
The third set was tied 10-10 and the Fighting Hawks (8-9) went on a 5-0 run. SDSU would cut the lead to 18-15 but UND would eventually keep the match alive with a 25-19 victory. The Jacks then jumped out to a 10-4 lead in set four. They kept their foot on the pedal as they pushed the lead to 16-7 and then closed out the match with a 9-4 run and won 25-11.
SDSU had 47 kills as a team and UND had 48. The Jacks had 52 digs and the Fighting Hawks had 53. Each team had 40 assists and the Jacks held a 14-3 advantage in blocks.
Redshirt junior middle blocker Sydni Schetnan led SDSU with 13 kills and seven blocks. The Sioux Falls native, who transferred from Louisville before her redshirt sophomore season, is fifth in the country in hitting percentage as she is hitting .463 so far this season. Georgalas said shes having a breakthrough year because of a position change that was made during the middle of last season.
We started her on the right side last year and moved her to the middle halfway through [the season] and theres just a learning process there. We told her, you can be an absolute monster as a middle blocker. She worked on it all spring and now here she is. I think shes hitting over .500 in league play. Shes top 10 or 15 in the country in hitting percentage. Shes a monster and were super proud of her for moving to a different position and she was a good learner and a really hard worker, Georgalas said.
Sylvie Zgonc had 12 kills and eight digs. Rylee Martin had 23 assists and 10 digs. Camryn Honn had nine assists and nine digs. Madison Burr had eight kills and six blocks. Joslyn Richardson had four aces and Annalee Ventling-Brown had six blocks.
SDSU has spent most of Georgalas tenure looking up at the teams at the top of the conference. Now, he has his team at the top of the Summit League standings and he said not much has changed in the locker room but he wants to keep the momentum going all the way to the end of the season.
I think its obvious that we have a target on our back, but our group comes in smiling and has fun every day. Its loose. We work hard, but our culture has good vibes and its loose and it is fun. I want it that way every season and all the way through the end of this one, Georgalas said.
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