Photo by Chris Drummond SMSU Katelyn Nichols (3) goes up for a kill over two MSU Moorhead defenders in Friday action.

MARSHALL — The Southwest Minnesota State University Mustangs volleyball team swept the MSU Moorhead Dragons 25-15, 27-25, and 25-10 on Friday evening. Senior Alisa Bengen achieved the milestone of surpassing 2,000 assists in her collegiate career. Bengen would lead her team with 37 assists on the night.

In the first set the Mustangs started off slow and the Dragons took an early lead of 12-9.

Head coach Tyler Boddy called a time-out and the Mustangs took off from there. The Mustangs were led by Emma Vanheel and Meg Schmidt getting multiple kills. Vanheel would finish with 14 kills and Schmidt with 10 kills in the contest.

The second set was a different story.

The Dragons came out on fire and kept up the energy for the entire set making the Mustangs work to hang with them. In the second set, the Dragons would have an opportunity to close out the Mustangs twice but failed to do so each time. Eventually, Saari Kuehl and Schmidt had back-to-back kills closing out MSU Moorhead 27-25, taking a two-set lead.

In set three, it was all Mustangs.

After scoring a total of 40 points combined in the two sets, the Dragons could only muster up 10 in the third. The Mustangs would go on to close out the set and match 25-10, giving them their 10th win in conference play on the season.

“Our kids understand that they’re playing against a great team each night in our conference,” Boddy said. “They pushed us in the second set and our kids know we have to be ready to come out and play each night. I told our kids that we actually earned this win tonight and beat them.”

Boddy also added that they’re coming up on a tough stretch of matches with great opponents. Also says that it should be fun but his team will have to bring it every match until the tournament. Rachel Fink would lead the team in digs with 10 and Natalee Rolbiecki would be second on the team with nine digs.

The SMSU Mustangs volleyball team (18-2) and (10-2) in the conference will host Northern State on Saturday at 4 p.m.