Photo by Jake McNeill Southwest Minnesota State outside hitter Leah Jones (10) reacts after middle blocker Karli Arkell (21) gets a kill during the No. 8 Mustangs' four-set win over No. 10 Minnesota Duluth in the PE Gym on Saturday afternoon.

MARSHALL – There wasn’t a spot on the court that libero McKenzie Tolk couldn’t get to in the No. 8 Southwest Minnesota State volleyball team’s Saturday afternoon matchup against No. 10 Minnesota Duluth, finishing the match with 20 digs to lead the Mustangs to a four-set victory.

“Something I really tried to focus on is, in transition, just getting my feet stopped so that I can make a move to the ball,” Tolk said. “I feel like I probably did a better job of that tonight than some other nights, but yeah, just being scrappy and trying to pick up every ball.”

The victory marks the Mustangs’ second win against a top-10 team in as many days after SMSU took down No. 6 St. Cloud State on Friday night.

“We’re just competing as a whole team and everybody’s doing their part,” Tolk said. “It’s a really good feeling to be winning these games.”

Like the St. Cloud State matchup, the Mustangs dropped the first game before rattling off three consecutive wins to seal the match.

As advertised, the game was a defensive battle with the two teams combining for 110 digs. SMSU finished with a .189 hitting percentage while UMD hit .189.

“Kenzie’s just so quick. She reads the court well… just giving great effort too,” SMSU head coach Tyler Boddy said. “Natalee [Rolbiecki] and Strass [Emily Strasser] do the same thing for us back there. All three of them are just very defensive-minded and make it hard for teams to score against us at times.”

Rolbiecki and Alisa Bengen had 12 and 10 digs for the Mustangs while Strasser had another five.

Kaylyn Madison and Cianna Selbitschka each had 14 digs for the Bulldogs while Payton Addink and Madison Gordon also contributed 12 and 11 respectively.

Game three was the most competitive game of the day. While none of the other games had more than two ties or one lead change, the third game had three lead changes and eight ties coming as late as 22-22. Still, a pair of kills from Karli Arkell and one last one by Leah Jones gave the Mustangs a 3-0 run to close out the set.

Arkell and Jones led the Mustangs offensively with 11 kills apiece while Emma VanHeel added another nine. VanHeel also had eight total blocks for the Mustangs while Arkell finished with five.

“[Arkell] is an aggressive attacker and she’s smart at the net. She sees the court really well and has good control of what she’s doing,” Boddy said. “She really has all shots on the court and makes it really hard for her to defend.”

As a team, SMSU finished with 14 blocks. Of those 14, 12 came after the first set.

“Emma and Karli just compete so hard up there as blockers. So do our other kids at times, but it starts in the middle defensively,” Boddy said.

For the Bulldogs, Addink and Selbitschka led the way with 11 kills each while Samantha Paulsen added another nine.

In the first set, SMSU scored the first 2 points but UMD built momentum from there and steadily increased their lead as the set progressed. Their largest lead of the set was the 25-15 final score.

The second game, however, was a different story. SMSU took a 2-1 lead and never let it go for the rest of the game before ultimately winning 25-18.

An early 4-1 lead set the tone for the Mustangs in the fourth set and they carried play from there, leading by as many as 9 points. SMSU took the game by a score of 25-17, closed out by a kill from Ashley Peltier.

Alisa Bengen had another outstanding game for the Mustangs, finishing with 31 set assists and four assisted blocks. She also had six kills of her own in the match.

Southwest Minnesota State improves to 14-2 on the season and 7-1 in conference after their pair of top-10 victories over the weekend.

“That’s a tough stretch, a tough weekend, so having the ability to play that hard or that well for as long as we did and have to do it two days in a row is really a credit to our team and trying to practice hard and get used to that grind, but it only continues to get harder,” Boddy said.

The Mustangs’ tough stretch will continue on Thursday at 6 p.m. with a road matchup against No. 2 Concordia-St. Paul.