JACKRABBITS ROLL INTO TITLE MATCH

Monday, November 24

Brookings, S.D.

6:00 p.m.

South Dakota State University

23-3,16-0Summit League

No. 4 North Dakota State

17-11,10-6Summit League

North Dakota St.

South Dakota St.

Photo by: Inertia Sports Media/Dave Eggen

11/24/2025 9:10:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

BROOKINGS, S.D. - The No. 1 South Dakota State volleyball team was surgical in its dismantling of No. 4 North Dakota State Monday night in the semifinal match of the Summit Leagu Championship. The Jackrabbits swept the Bison 25-15, 25-10, 25-20 to advance to Tuesday night's championship game against St. Thomas.

The Jackrabbits' defense was rolling early, forcing attack errors on five of NDSU's first six swings of the match, while the offense hit .270 in the opening frame and only had one attack error of its own en route to a 25-15 victory.

The second set was more of the same for the Jackrabbits, who used a 14-4 run to put the clamps down and post a 25-10 victory to move ahead 2-0. Sylvie Zgonc and the Jackrabbit attackers hit .480 in the frame, combining for 13 kills and just one attack error again. Zgonc, the back-to-back Summit League Player of the Year, had five kills in the second set and also added a solo block as SDSU followed up a four-block first set with four more as NDSU hit -0.100 as a team.

NDSU led for the first time in any set after SDSU opened the third set with a service ace and would hang with the Jackrabbits early on. Back-to-back kills from Lauren Jansen and a service ace by Cathy Porter had the Bison ahead 9-6. Another kill by Jansen capped a 6-1 run by her squad that made SDSU head coach Dan Georgalis call a timeout with his team trailing 11-7.

The Jacks reeled off five straight points out of the break to gain the lead back at 12-11 and force NDSU head coach Jennifer Lopez to use a timeout. An ace by the Jacks would stretch the run to six straight and their lead to 13-11 before Arianna Blohm ended it with a kill.

After falling behind 15-12, the Bison would claw all the way back to briefly regain the lead at 19-18 on a kill by Emma Tallman that forced another Jacks' timeout.

SDSU would take the lead right back with a quick 5-0 spurt that the Bison would not recover from.

The SDSU defense kept making it difficult for NDSU attackers as Madison Burr and crew combined for 14 blocks, including eight in the sweep-clinching set. The Jacks would close things out 25-20 on a service ace by Maggie Meister that was the Jacks' third of the set and sixth of the match.

Zgonc hit .355 with 11 kills on 31 swings to pace the Jackrabbits' offense, while Burr added seven kills for SDSU and led all players with eight total blocks, including three solo. Sydni Schetnan added six kills, hit a team-best .545 and added four blocks for the Jackrabbits, who limited NDSU to a .026 hitting percentage.

Lauren Jansen led all players with 17 kills and hit .265 for the Bison, who did not have another player with more than five kills.

NOTES

The Jackrabbits will play for the tournament title for the second straight season and look to capture just the program's first since winning its only title in 2007.
SDSU improved to 3-0 on the season against NDSU after defeating the Bison in both regular season tilts as well.
The Jackrabbits out-blocked the Bison 14-2 in the match.

UP NEXT
The Jackrabbits will play St. Thomas in the title match at 6 p.m. on Tuesday night at First Bank & Trust Arena

-GoJacks.com-