Photo by Jake McNeill: Southwest Minnesota State University libero McKenzie Tolk, center, reacts to a Mustang point during a Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference volleyball match against Minnesota State University-Moorhead at the SMSU PE Gym in Marshall on Sept. 28. SMSU earned the seventh seed in the Division II NCAA Tournament's Central Region and will take on No. 2 Central Oklahoma on Thursday at Halenbeck Hall in St. Cloud.

ST. CLOUD — For the second consecutive year, the Southwest Minnesota State University volleyball team is competing for a national title. The Mustangs earned an at-large bid for the No. 7 seed in the Central Region, setting them up to do battle with second-seeded Central Oklahoma in the regional quarterfinals today.

During the Mustangs’ last trip to the tournament last year, the Mustangs earned the No. 3 seed in the central region after a 23-6 campaign heading into selection day. Yet, SMSU’s season came to a close in its first matchup with a four-set loss to Nebraska Kearney. 

The loss to UNK was the Mustangs’ third consecutive loss to close the season as they got swept by Concordia-St. Paul in their regular-season finale and lost their first Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Tournament matchup to Minnesota Duluth in four sets.

This year’s Central Oklahoma squad has been nothing short of a juggernaut. The Bronchos won each of their first 18 matches to start the season, including 11 sweeps, and enter the tournament at 30-2 on a 10-match win streak. They handily defeated Nebraska Kearney, ranked No. 3 in the country at the time, in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletic Association championship match in four sets for their first-ever conference title.

Today’s match will mark just the second time ever that SMSU and Central Oklahoma have met, the first coming in September 2002 when Central Oklahoma swept the Mustangs in Pensacola, Fla. No members of the current SMSU roster were alive during that last meeting and only senior Mallorie Koehn and graduate student Mikaela Garvin had been born yet on the Bronchos’ roster. 

While the Mustangs have been a defensively-oriented team all season, boasting a .170 opponent hitting percentage and a conference-leading 19.25 digs per set on the season, the Bronchos present a strong challenge to the SMSU back row. Central Oklahoma’s .268 hitting percentage leads the conference and their 14.73 trailed only Nebraska Kearney’s 14.77.

Maya Fergerson and Addison Wimmer have been among the driving forces of that Central Oklahoma front row with 3.53 and 3.51 kills per set, ranking second and third in the conference. Elinor Engel, Jenna Karp and Sydney Huck also rank eighth, ninth and 10th in the MIAA, with Karp’s .367 hitting percentage trailing only Washburn’s Alex Dvorak at 3.77. 

SMSU returns the bulk of its roster from last year’s postseason loss. They graduated Alisa Bengen, who recorded a game-high 47 set assists against UNK as well as 14 digs, and they also lost defensive specialist Natalee Rolbiecki to Concordia-St. Paul in the transfer portal. Rolbiecki recorded 18 digs in the match.

Libero McKenzie Tolk, however, does return. Tolk recorded 19 digs and a service ace in last year’s NCAA tournament match. Tolk was named to this year’s American Volleyball Coaches Association’s All-Region team as an honorable mention after leading the Mustangs with 570 digs, putting her third in the NSIC behind only Winona State’s Kylie Welch’s 580 and Northern State’s Abby Meister’s 578. Meister transferred out of SMSU to NSU after her freshman season. 

Tolk’s 5.33 digs per set ranked 23rd in the nation this year and she had 12 matches with 20 or more digs. 

The Mustangs’ attack has only gotten stronger. Returning all key pieces, SMSU’s hitting percentage rose 4 points to .236 and its kills per set jumped from 13.69 to 14.51. Part of that jump can be attributed to its balanced attack, with Saari Kuehl, Leah Jones and Emma Vanheel all ranking in the top 16 of the conference in kills per set at 3.01, 2.89 and 2.87 respectively.

Ashley Peltier and Karli Arkell also both rank top 20 in the NSIC in hitting percentage alongside VanHeel. Arkell and Peltier’s 2.61 and 2.89 marks put them 20th and 13th in the NSIC while VanHeel’s .316 clip ranked 11th.

Redshirt freshman Sydney Thein has helped SMSU overcome the loss of Bengen with a spectacular collegiate debut season. The MACCRAY product ranked third in the conference with 11.59 digs per set and her 1,240 total digs trailed only Concordia-St. Paul’s Teegan Starkey, who tallied 1,413.

SMSU finished the regular season on a five-match winning streak but fell in four sets to Northern State in the NSIC tournament. Still, the Mustangs’ pair of regular-season wins over the Wolves and road win over Wayne State, which placed third in the NSIC standings, helped SMSU edge the two conference foes for the last at-large bid to the big dance. 

As a whole, the NSIC had three teams qualify for the NCAA tournament with St. Cloud State earning the top seed in the region and Concordia-St. Paul earning the 4 seed.

Katie Le, Rachel Ziesman and Lari Migliorino have led Central Oklahoma’s defensive efforts this season. Le ranked fifth in the MIAA with 5.25 digs per set, good for a total of 565, while Ziesman and Migliorino logged 1.07 and 1.06 blocks per set to slot in at No. 6 and no. 7 on the MIAA leaderboard. 

Today’s match is scheduled to start at 1:30 p.m. at Halenbeck Hall in St. Cloud. A radio broadcast of the game can be found on Marshall 105.1 FM KARL while live stats are available online at SMSUmustangs.com. The winner of the match will take on the winner of No. 3 Nebraska Kearney and No. 6 Washburn in the region semifinals on Friday at 4 p.m.