Photo by Jake McNeill: Southwest Minnesota State University libero McKenzie Tolk goes in for a dig during the second set of a Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference volleyball match against Minnesota State University-Moorhead at the PE Gym in Marshall on Saturday afternoon. Tolk notched her 1,000th career dig in the first set of the Mustangs' 3-0 win over the Dragons.

MARSHALL — The No. 4 Southwest Minnesota State University volleyball team showed no signs of fatigue when it hosted Minnesota State University-Moorhead following Friday night’s five-set win over No. 22 Northern State. The Mustangs dominated the first set against MSU Moorhead and held on from there for a 25-15, 25-22, 25-22 victory.

Near the end of the first set, McKenzie Tolk picked up her 1,000th career dig for the Mustangs. The junior libero was seven digs shy of the milestone heading into the match and hit the mark and then some, finishing the match with 16, bringing her career total up to 1,009. Only Sydney Thein had more digs in the match, finishing with 23.

“I just tried to focus on my game without thinking about stats or anything like that. I knew I was close, a couple of my teammates were talking about it, but I just tried to play my match without thinking about anything like that,” Tolk said. Tolk attributed her milestone to her consistent work ethic in practices and matches, crediting her teammates for being supportive and for making her want to play hard for them.

“Kenzie just plays so hard defensively, she just fires our team up,” SMSU head coach Tyler Boddy said. “Those hitters are so fun to watch after [Tolk] makes a play, they’re just fearless because they’re like, ‘Dang, if she makes plays like that, I should really go after this.’ It excites our team and she brings great energy to us that way. Her effort in practices and matches is all the same, and that’s fun to coach.”

When Tolk hit the milestone, she said neither she nor her teammates knew in the moment.

“Nobody knew. I guess we were just all like, ‘hopefully she makes it this game,'” Tolk said with a laugh.

From the first serve, SMSU came out firing on all cylinders. The Mustangs scored each of the match’s first 4 points and 9 of the first 10. They also spread the ball around with four different hitters accounting for SMSU’s first 6 kills.

Moorhead couldn’t cut into SMSU’s first-game lead in any significant manner. The Dragons cut the deficit as close as 5 points when a Sydney Thein setting error cut the lead to 12-7, but SMSU responded with kills from Thein, Emma VanHeel and Saari Kuehl and a service ace from Leah Jones to bring the lead right back to 9 points. The lead steadily grew from there until the Mustangs claimed the 25-15 win.

Thein finished the match with 41 set assists and one error on the night. On the finishing end, Jones’ 15 kills were a match-high while Kuehl, Peltier and VanHeel finished with 12, 13 and nine respectively. As a team, the Mustangs put together a .393 hitting percentage while limiting MSU Moorhead to a .237 mark.

“Sydney did an awesome job of just trusting all of our hitters once again,” Boddy said. “It was very efficient and I just kept saying error-free. I thought we played a very clean game, and I thought Moorhead did the same thing, but we hit .393 on the night.”

Thein and Jones both earned weekly conference honors after their performances last week. Jones was named the NSIC’s Offensive Player of the Week after averaging four kills per set on a .244 hiting percentage over the Mustangs’ three wins over Augustana, Northern State and MSU Moorhead. This marks Jones’ first time earning the award.

Thein earned the NSIC’s Setter of the Week nod for the second consecutive week after averaging 12.38 assists per set and leading SMSU to a .285 hitting percentage as a team. The redshirt freshman set a career high with 56 set assists against Augustana on Tuesday and then bettered that mark with 64 assists in the win over Northern State on Friday. Her 13.67 assists per set against Moorhead on Saturday were also a career-high.

Abby Thompson and Mya Pfeifer finished as the Dragons’ leading hitters with eight kills each while Annalise Wilson and Amanda Lisi tallied 18 and 16 set assists respectively.

While SMSU led the first set wire-to-wire, the Dragons made the Mustangs work for it in game 2. Moorhead held a 3-2 lead before SMSU scored 5 of the next 6 points to take the lead.

Facing an 8-4 deficit, the Dragons didn’t give up. They kept pace with the Mustangs coming within a point of tying up the game five times between SMSU’s 16-15 lead and SMSU’s 21-20 lead. Still, the Mustangs didn’t relinquish the lead and captured the game 25-20.

The 2022 Marshall High School Class 3A state championship volleyball team was prominently featured in the match, with sophomore Leah Jones and freshman Kennedy Drake playing for their hometown Mustangs, and freshman Brielle Riess playing for Moorhead.

“It’s coming full cirle, going and seeing them as teammates and then going and competing against them. It’s like practices back in high school, but more fun because it’s a college atmosphere,” Riess said.

Riess was the Dragons’ leading hitter coming into the day. While she excelled in the front row again with six kills, she was also excellent defensively with her 10 digs putting her second on her team behind libero Kiara Olesch’s 12.

SMSU fell into an early hole in the third game, dropping each of the first 3 points. They tied it back up at 7-7, but another three unanswered points gave the Dragons their cushion right back.

Trailing 12-9, a Peltier kill, a Tolk service ace, two Jones kills and a Moorhead error gave Marshall a 14-12 lead, putting it on top for the first time in the game. Moorhead once again wasn’t able to retie the set, hanging within striking distance only for Marshall to pull ahead for a 25-22 win.

Saturday’s match came on the heels of a five-set battle against Northern State, a match in which the Mustangs dropped each of the first two sets before rattling off three consecutive wins to steal the match. Still, they looked fresh and ready to go on Saturday, something Boddy attributed to the Mustangs’ tough serves, tenacious defense and aggressive pressure.

“[Before the match, we said that] this is going to be another tough, tough day. I thought we were ready to play last night mentally going into it and [Northern State] just outplayed us,” Boddy said. “It ended up being a long night, but I thought we turned it around today. We had a good focus in film and knew what we were going to do against [MSU Moorhead], and I thought we executed really well.”

Now a perfect 13-0 on the year, SMSU will face its toughest tests yet when it goes on the road to face No. 15 Minnesota Duluth and No. 12 St. Cloud State. The Bulldogs are 8-2 so far this season after dropping to No. 9 Concordia-St. Paul in five sets last weekend while the Huskies are 8-2 and riding a four-match win streak, including a sweep of No. 9 Concordia-St. Paul on Friday and a four-set win over then-No. 20 Michigan Tech on Sept. 14.

SMSU defeated the Huskies in four sets in the teams’ last matchup but hasn’t defeated the Huskies in consecutive matches since their 19-game win streak against St. Cloud State from 2005 to 2017. SMSU lost in four sets to Minnesota Duluth in last season’s NSIC tournament but defeated them in five sets and four sets in two regular-season matchups.

Boddy said that getting rest ahead of the two matchups will be key for the Mustangs, adding that SMSU expects both teams to hit them with their best shot.

“I was going to ask them if they wanted to come and play it here instead,” Boddy said with a laugh. “But we’ll get on the bus, we’ve been good on the road and we’ve looked focused so hopefully we can continue that.”

Friday’s game against the Bulldogs is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. in Romano Gymnasium while Saturday’s game against St. Cloud State is slated for 2 p.m. in Halenbeck Hall.