MOORHEAD, Minn. – The No. 16 Southwest Minnesota State volleyball team began its final weekend of regular season play with a bang, staying resilient to defeat the MSU Moorhead Dragons 30-28, 25-9, 19-25, 21-25, 18-16 in five sets in Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference action on Friday evening inside Alex Nemzek Fieldhouse.
SMSU moves to 22-4 on the season and 13-4 in NSIC play, while MSUM drops to 9-16 on the year, 4-13 NSIC.
Five Mustang attackers swung for double-digit kills in the victory.
Emma VanHeel led the way with 19 kills on an efficient .372 hitting percentage and 10 digs for a double-double.
Ashley Peltier followed with 16 kills on .361 hitting and jumped for a pair of solo blocks on defense.
Saari Kuehl recorded 12 kills,
Leah Jones posted 11 kills, and
Karli Arkell batted down 10 kills. Jones added 17 digs for a double-double and jumped for three blocks.
Sydney Thein supported the offense with 60 assists. She also recorded five kills and a pair of aces offensively and notched a double-double with 18 digs on defense.
McKenzie Tolk led the SMSU defense to a season-high 117 digs. Tolk recorded 26 digs and supported offensively with seven assists.
Mya Krystosek and
Kennedy Drake recorded 18 and 17 digs, respectively.
True freshman and Marshall, Minn. native, Brielle Reiss, led the MSUM offense with a career-high 27 kills on .323 hitting. Reiss secured a double-double with 20 digs and recorded an ace. Emily Ramsay was the only other Dragon to reach double-figures in attacking, recording 13 kills and 23 digs. Maci Martini anchored the MSUM back line with a match-high 29 digs.
The first set was filled with action from the very start. SMSU quickly moved to an 8-6 lead until the Dragons picked up steam and went on a 6-1 run to lead 12-9. MSUM would play hard to hold the lead until a score of 16-11, forcing an SMSU timeout.
Coming out of the timeout, the Mustangs rattled off six of the next eight points to shrink the margin to two. The momentum would not last, as MSUM returned with six of the next seven points to reach 23 points in the set to the Mustangs 17. Kills by Peltier and Krystosek paired with two aces from Thein evened the set at 23-23. The teams would trade the next 10 points evenly until SMSU broke through with kills from VanHeel and Thein to win set one 30-28.
Set two was dominated by SMSU. The Mustangs used the momentum gained in the first set to their advantage, climbing to a 14-3 lead to start. The Dragons would only score six more points throughout the remainder of the set, falling short of any attempt at a comeback. SMSU cruised to the second set win.
Set three saw MSUM start its comeback, hitting an efficient .385 percentage with 17 kills in the game. SMSU would lead 7-5 until MSUM pursued a 10-2 run backed by Emily Ramsay and Jocelin Feutz to lead 15-9. MSUM continued its dominant run to extend the lead to eight at 19-11 before SMSU battled back to close the gap to 23-19. MSUM rallied with a kill and block to secure the third set
The Dragons used the win in set three to fuel the flame through set four. MSUM led at 10-6 and again at 11-8 until SMSU charged back to take a 15-13 lead, the Mustangs' last lead of the set. MSU Moorhead would turn the game around and lead 20-16 before trading the next 14 points evenly down the stretch to emerge victorious.
SMSU started the fifth set slow, falling into a three-point deficit with a pair of attacking errors. A Dragon attacking error added to a pair of kills split by VanHeel and Kuehl slashed the score to a one-point margin at 6-5. Four of the next five points would go the way of the Dragons, re-extending the lead to 10-6, and putting MSUM in good shape.
SMSU would not go away, as Kuehl and Peltier combined for four kills to fuel a Mustangs scoring run that tied the game at 11-11. MSUM earned three of the next four points for its first set point of the fifth game. VanHeel and Jones took control of the match and led SMSU to the 15-14 lead. The set would tie again at 15-15 and 16-16 before VanHeel and Arkell both recorded kills to close out the match for SMSU.
SMSU plays its final match of the regular season tomorrow with a crucial contest versus No. 18 Northern State (20-5, 12-5 NSIC) at 3 p.m.
The match will likely decide the seeding between the third, fourth, and fifth seeds in the upcoming NSIC Tournament.
