By Andrew Holtan
The Brookings Beacon
SIOUX FALLS – The South Dakota State volleyball team closed out non-conference play with a pair of matches against Big Ten teams and the Jackrabbits lost to Washington and Minnesota at the Sanford Pentagon over the weekend.
The Jacks were swept by the Huskies on Friday afternoon and then took one set from the Golden Gophers but lost in four on Saturday afternoon.
SDSU ends non-conference play with a record of 4-7. Five of the Jacks’ 12 non-conference matches were against teams that were either ranked in the top 25 or were receiving votes at the time. SDSU played eight road or neutral site matches in the non-conference.
Washington won set one 25-11 on Friday. The Jacks played the Huskies tough in the second set, losing 25-21, but then lost the third set 25-16.
Senior Sylvie Zgonc led the Jacks with nine kills and sophomore Hannah Klein had eight kills. Sophomore Brooke Larsen had 13 assists and senior Rylee Martin had 12 assists. Zgonc also led the Jacks with six digs and two aces.
Minnesota took the first two sets by scores of 25-22 and 25-14. The Jacks fought back with a 25-20 win in set three but then fell 25-17 in the fourth.
Zgonc had 16 kills and eight digs. Klein had nine kills and Kennedey Whitford had four aces and nine digs. Senior Rylee Martin had 23 assists.
The Jacks will be without junior outside hitters Madison Burr and Katelyn Van Kirk for the rest of the season due to injuries. Burr, a junior, was a First Team All-Summit League selection in 2025. She did not play in a match this season. Van Kirk played in the first match of the season against Pepperdine and played in the first set and had two kills. In 2025 she played in 13 sets and had 10 kills.
Zgonc is on pace to win a third-straight Summit League Player of the Year Award as she leads the Summit League in kills with 190 and that averages out to 4.63 per set. Klein has stepped up in Burr and Van Kirk’s absence with 105 kills.
Larsen has been a do-it-all player for the Jacks with 59 kills, 177 assists and 81 digs. Richardson and Martin have led the teams in digs and assists, respectively. Richardson has 122 digs and Martin has 212 assists.
Graduate senior Brooklyn Meyer, who played her first four years on the Jackrabbit basketball team, has only played in five sets so far this season. She has four kills and two block assists.
The Jacks will begin conference play on Friday with a rivalry matchup against South Dakota at 7 p.m. in Vermillion. The Coyotes went 7-4 in non-conference play and also were swept by the Huskies and lost to the Golden Gophers in four sets this past weekend. Those two teams were the only power conference (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC) teams the ‘Yotes played in the non-conference.
North Dakota State had the best non-conference record in the Summit League at 8-2, but the Bison did not play a power conference team. Defending Summit League Tournament champion St. Thomas is 2-7 but one of its victories was a sweep of Miami (Fla.). The Tommies were swept by Minnesota and took Texas Tech to five sets in their season opener.
SDSU’s first three conference games are on the road as the Jacks play at Omaha on Oct. 1 and at UST on Oct. 3. The Jackrabbits’ conference home opener is Oct. 8 against Kansas City. The Coyotes and Tommies will travel to Brookings on Oct. 23 and 29, respectively. SDSU ends the regular season with a match against the Bison on Nov. 14.
