The Basics
Score: No. 1 seed South Dakota State 3, No. 4 seed North Dakota State
Records: SDSU (23-3, 16-0 SL), NDSU (17-11, 10-6 SL)
Location: First Bank & Trust Arena – Brookings, S.D.
BROOKINGS, S.D. – Top-seeded South Dakota State rolled to its second straight title-game appearance after sweeping fourth-seeded North Dakota State (25-15, 25-10, 25-20) on its home court at First Bank & Trust Arena in semfinal action at the 2025 Summit League Volleyball Championship. The Jacks pushed their overall win streak to 17 straight with the victory and improved to 11-1 at home.
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 serivce 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 Georgalas 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.
Who Stood Out
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.
Turning Point
The Jackrabbits raced out to a 9-1 advantage in set one and never trailed en route to a sweep of the Bison.
Notable
- 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.
- NDSU was trying to reach its first title match since winning back-to-back touranments in 2010 and 2011.
- The Jackrabbits outblocked the Bison 14-2 in the match.
Up Next
The Jackrabbits will play St. Thomas in the 2025 #SummitVB Championship title match on Tuesday at 6 p.m. CT. The match will be streamed live on the Summit League Network.
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