WAYNE, Neb. – The No. 12 Southwest Minnesota State volleyball team turned the tables on the No. 7 Wayne State Wildcats to win three consecutive sets and earn a comeback upset win in Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference volleyball on Thursday night.
SMSU earns its first win over WSC since the 2022 season to improve to 18-3 overall and 9-3 in NSIC play. WSC drops to 17-4 and 10-2 in the NSIC.
The Mustangs posted a season-high 79 kills in the win on .235 hitting, while Wayne State posted 62 kills on .199 hitting.
Five Mustangs posted over 10 kills to guide the SMSU offense to the come-from-behind win.
Ashley Peltier led the attack with a career-high 18 kills on an efficient .379 hitting percentage and grabbed three block assists.
Saari Kuehl also added 18 kills on .311 hitting while adding four digs on defense.
Emma VanHeel chipped in 18 kills as well and led SMSU with five block assists and a solo block while helping the back line with a pair of aces.
Karli Arkell and
Leah Jones swung for 12 apiece to round out the offense. Jones recorded a career-high 27 digs on defense for a double-double.
SMSU totaled a season-best in assists thanks to
Sydney Thein working on both sides of the floor, setting a career-high 73 assists to support the offense while chipping in 15 digs for a double-double. The 73 assists ranks second in team single-match history. Cara Carson holds the record of 74 set versus Wayne State in 2010.
McKenzie Tolk led the back line with a career-high 30 digs while helping offensively with three assists.
Mya Krystosek aided Tolk with a career-high of her own, posting 25 digs.
Kennedy Drake built on the effort with 12 digs.
WSC was led by Channatee Robles, who batted down 19 kills and added 16 digs. Maggie Brahmer and Taya Beller each added 17 kills with the pair combining for eight blocks defensively. Molly Romano supported the Wildcat attack with 56 assists and Brooke Peltz held down the back line with 28 digs.
The teams battled to open the match before SMSU pursued a 7-2 run to climb to a six-point lead at 12-6. WSC battled back to cut the deficit to four points until using a kill and a pair of SMSU attacking errors to bring the game to a one-point margin. The set would see tie scores at 21-21, 22-22, 23-23, and 24-24 before the Wildcats pulled away to win set one.
The second set started similarly to the first, with the match seeing back-and-forth play until the score settled at 15-15. The Wildcats fired four kills to score the next six points to lead by five at 21-16. The Mustangs tried to get back into it but failed to climb back in set two, losing 25-19.
Set three opened with a Wayne State lead until kills from Kuehl and VanHeel gave the lead back to the Mustangs. The SMSU offense found a spark thanks to a WSC attacking error, which in turn led to a 10-3 run backed by kills from five different Mustang attackers. The Wildcats refused to give up, pushing back with a 9-1 run to diminish the margin to just one point.
The effort would prove to be too little, as SMSU scored four of the five final points to close out game three.
A 9-3 SMSU run to start the fourth set forced the WSC coaching staff to burn both timeouts early on to calm the Wildcats' nerves. The Mustangs never gave up the lead from then on out to force a fifth set.
WSC moved quickly to lead 5-4 right away in the fifth set until
Emma VanHeel knocked down four consecutive kills to give SMSU the edge at the switching of sides. Wayne State nipped at the heels of SMSU for the remainder of play, tying the match at 12-12 off back-to-back kills. However, the Mustangs had the momentum and used it as fuel to bat down three kills in quick succession to finish the reverse sweep.
The Mustangs are back in action next week on the road with a match versus Minnesota State on Wednesday, Oct. 30.
