USD Volleyball opens Summit League play
USD Volleyball opened Summit League play with road wins over North Dakota State on Friday and Oral Roberts on Sunday.
USD entered Fargo, North Dakota with a five-game losing streak, but turned things around, beating North Dakota State with the set scores 25-12, 23-25, 21-25, 25-17 and 15-9. The win pushed their record to 7-6 overall.
Senior Hayley Dotseth tied her career high at 23 kills and senior Taylor Wilson set a new career high at 19 in addition to three blocks. Sophomore Madison Jurgens contributed game-highs in assists (53) and aces (five). She also finished with 13 digs. Anne Rasmussen led the Coyotes with a season-high 34 digs.
USD topped Oral Roberts 24-26, 25-21, 25-23 and 25-23 in large part to the combination of Wilson and Dotseth. They each tallied 18 kills and Wilson lead the team with five blocks defensively.
“We are so excited to come back home with two wins after this road trip,” said head coach Leanne Williamson told GoYotes. “Winning on the road in this league is tough, especially with the distance between these two opponents. It took our whole team to pull out this win, and I am proud of how they worked together. It wasn’t always our cleanest volleyball, but we made big plays down the stretch to close it out.”
The Coyotes finished with 60 kills to 22 errors for a .202 hitting percentage while Oral Roberts was at .191. Dotseth added 16 digs to her 18 kills, and Jurgens tallied 46 assists, nine digs and four blocks. Rasmussen’s 30 digs was the match high.
Up next for the Coyotes is a return to the Sanford Coyote Sports Center where they will begin a three-game homestand, the first of which will be this Friday, Sept 28 against Purdue-Fort Wayne (10-5) at 7 p.m.
