Sophomore
Makenzie Hennen led the South Dakota State volleyball team on offense Saturday night, but the Jackrabbits lost in three sets to Fort Wayne in a Summit League match in front of 423 fans at Frost Arena.
SDSU (2-18, 0-7) lost 25-19, 25-21 and 25-14 to the Mastodons (11-11, 3-4).
Hennen led the team with nine kills. Junior
Mattison Munger had 13 set assists and six digs. Senior
Ellie Benson added a team high nine digs.
Katie Crowe and Nicole Rightnowar each had 11 kills for Fort Wayne.
Turning Points
In the first set, the Jackrabbits were within four points at 20-16 after a Hennen kill, but Fort Wayne outscored State 5-3 down the stretch for the win.
SDSU led 14-12 in the second set, but the Mastodons used a 10-2 run to take a 22-16 lead. The Jackrabbits responded, scoring the next three points on kills from Munger and junior
Payton Richardson and a Fort Wayne error. After a Mastodons' timeout, SDSU was limited to just two points.
Fort Wayne led 20-9 in the third set and closed the set on a Rightnowar kill for the win.
They said it …
"I thought set one we executed our game plan and we still allowed them to go on a run, but we were able to shrink it … minimize it a little bit more," third-year head coach
Nicole Cirillo said. "In set two, I thought we did good overall. It was just at key moments when we had errors. It's the same story of the runs.
"Set three just got out of hand from the get-go. And, of course, that was the one thing we talked about. That's something we have to work on now that it's happened in quite a few matches. We have come out in set three and just gotten so far behind. I think overall it is progressing and we are starting to see a little bit more progress."
Notables