Photo by Jake McNeill: Southwest Minnesota State University libero McKenzie Tolk goes for a dig during the Mustangs’ Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference win over Winona State in Marshall on Saturday.

MARSHALL — The Southwest Minnesota State University volleyball team capped off a strong homecoming weekend on Saturday with a three-set win over Winona State in Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference play. The Mustangs controlled every set throughout to claim a 25-17, 25-18, 25-13 win.

“We just had lunch with [the SMSU volleyball alumni] today, and they all tried to play this morning, which was fun to see. It’s just such a rich history to get to be a part of,” SMSU head coach Tyler Boddy said of the win. “Just the tradition that we have is so cool to be a part of, and I appreciate them coming back every year. It’s something that I think they look forward to and our program looks forward to having.”

Saturday’s win builds on a five-set victory the Mustangs had over then-No. 8 Concordia-St. Paul on Friday. The pair of wins resulted in SMSU moving up from No. 17 to No. 15 in the most recent American Volleyball Coaches Association Division II poll.

Ashley Peltier strung together a pair of kills and a block with Natalie Pilney while Leah Jones logged a kill and a service ace to help the Mustangs get off to an early 6-1 lead in the first set. Still, Winona State quickly rallied back with Kenna Kornely and Ella Zmolek each contributing a pair of kills to tie the set back up at 7 points apiece.

An SMSU attacking error and a Kenna Kornely kill gave the Warriors their first lead, 11-9, when the Mustangs snapped back into form. Mya Krystosek served up a tying ace and Jones rose up to hit the go-ahead kill.

The Mustangs retained that lead for the remainder of the set, slowly growing their lead until three consecutive Warrior attacking errors gave the Mustangs a 25-17 win.

Krystosek led the Mustang attack in the match with 12 kills and a pair of service aces while Peltier and Jones added another 11 each. Setting up those kills, Sydney Thein logged 37 set assists with one setting error.

“Credit to our back-row ball-handling and passing kids, we were in system a lot,” Boddy said of his team’s well-distributed kills. “Where Sydney was at the net, she had a lot of good looks for herself to be able to distribute it to everybody. So credit to our back-row kids, she’d be the first one to say that too.”

Boddy added that he felt like the team’s hitters took care of the ball well, noting the team’s three hitting errors as a mark of that efficiency.

Krystosek picked up the first point of the second game via a kill, but neither team could pull away. The teams oscillated between a 1-point Mustang lead and a tie game until Pilney and Krystosek recorded back-to-back kills to bring SMSU’s lead to 8-6.

Winona State continued to keep pace with the Mustangs until Pilney and Peltier each hit for a pair of kills and Jones added another to give SMSU a 5-0 run for a 19-13 lead.

Pilney had another big defensive game at the net for SMSU, finishing with five total blocks while Thein and Peltier contributed four and three, respectively. Pilney also had seven total blocks a day prior against the Golden Bears.

“We’ve been working on blocking all week and staying disciplined is a big thing, just staying where we are and not trying to guess,” Pilney said of the team’s success up front. “I think me, Karli and Emily [Rohrer] did a good job of all working hard this week during practice.”

The Warriors never came any closer than 4 points from there. SMSU finished the set strong with kills from Peltier, Krystosek and a block from Karli Arkell and Thein sealed the 25-18 win behind a .581 hitting percentage in the set.

As a team, SMSU put together a .484 hitting percentage while Winona State hit .225. Libero McKenzie Tolk finished with 14 digs in the match, while Thein tallied another 12.

Jones, Krystosek and Peltier each recorded kills early in the first set to build a 4-1 lead for SMSU. The Warriors worked their way to get back within a point, but a pair of Arkell kills led SMSU on another run to grow the lead to 10-5 when Winona State called a timeout.

Coming out of the huddle, the Mustangs continued to build momentum with another 5 unanswered points to bring the lead to 15-5 behind a trio of kills from Arkell over the 8-0 run.

“We’ve really worked on being gritty,” Pilney said. “We’ve worked on scenarios of having tight matches to improve on things that went wrong in previous matches, so I think we did a good job of having good teamwork. And we also did a team-bonding exercise this week that worked on celebrating progress, so that also really helped us in these games.”

Boddy added that he felt his team’s consistent effort to go all-out on defense was among the determining factors in the third set, and that he thought the players were really engaged all weekend.

Winona State never recovered down the final stretch, as SMSU went on to lead by as many as 13 points before claiming the 25-13 win. The Mustangs limited the Warriors to a .086 hitting percentage in the set.

Kenna Kornely led Winona State’s attack with 16 kills while Ashlyn Steding and Jaci Winchell split setting duties with 21 and 13 assists, respectively. Anna Hennessy also finished with 11 digs in the back row. The Warriors did not record a block in the match.

Southwest Minnesota State improves to 12-4 overall with the win and gets back above .500 in conference play at 5-4 in NSIC games this season, tying them for sixth in the standings. The Mustangs will look to continue to rise up the standings when they host Augustana (8-9, 2-7 NSIC) on Thursday at 7:15 p.m. before going on the road to face No. 7 Wayne State (15-3, 8-1 NSIC) on Saturday at 2 p.m. in the Rice Auditorium.