Epic Summit Matches Send Volleyball Back to NCAAs

A Summit League volleyball tournament in April? Such was life in 2020-21 after the COVID-19 pandemic picked up fall seasons and moved them to the spring.

South Dakota played 22 matches during the spring semester, nine required five sets including a pair of exciting and nail-biting tournament games in Sioux Falls that sent the Coyotes back to the NCAA tournament.

After going 31-3 in 2019, Leanne Williamson’s squad went more than 13 months without a competition. When it returned in late January, it played four matches before diving head first into conference play.

Two of those first-four matches were five-setters with then-No. 14 Creighton in a home-and-home series set two days apart. The Coyotes rallied from an 0-2 hole to stun the Bluejays in Omaha to score their first win in the Division I era over a top-25 team. Incredibly, Creighton had been 94-0 at D.J. Sokol Arena after winning the first two sets. Elizabeth Juhnke had 18 kills and 17 digs while Sami Slaughter provided 14 kills against two errors. Libero Lolo Weideman had 27 digs.

South Dakota backed up the win by taking the first two sets at home against Creighton less than 48 hours later. This time, the Bluejays rallied for a victory.

The conference season was an exciting four-horse race. Like basketball, it featured two games against the same opponent at the same location on backto-back nights. USD finished 12-3, one game behind champion Denver and percentage points behind 13-3 Kansas City. Eight of the Coyotes’ 12 wins were clean sweeps. Three others were over in four.

Just one No. 3 seed had won the Summit League Tournament, but that was the number USD had next to its name. The Coyotes beat Kansas City 3-2 in a semifinal match they led 2-1, significant because the Roos had erased a pair of 2-1 deficits to win two games in Vermillion two weekends prior. Slaughter

Senior Sami Slaughter

The Coyotes celebrate on the court

Back row (l-r): Courtney Syverson, Jacob Gapp, Atley Carey, Ally Grothusen, Mattie Johnson, Brooklyn Schram, Michael Runde, Laura Petterson, Leanne Williamson, Shelly Stumpff Front row: Sami Slaughter, Evelyn Diederich, Madison Jurgens, Aimee Adams, Claire Gerdes, Elizabeth Juhnke, Madison Harms, Maddie Wiedenfeld, Lolo Weideman, Brooklyn Bollweg, Jenna Uher, Allison Byler and Juhnke posted 21 kills apiece. Middle blocker Madison Harms chipped in 11. South Dakota won set five 15-11 after Kansas City evened the match at two sets apiece.

That led to a winner-take-all match less than 24 hours later against top-seeded Denver, a team USD beat on the road 3-1 during the regular season. The second game of the series was canceled due to weather.

This time Denver won the first two sets and was ahead in set three 17-13. But like Creighton, the Coyotes rallied.

A Juhnke kill tied set three at 25-25 as USD fought off Denver’s first match point and the Coyotes won the next two points to earn the set. The Pioneers led the Coyotes 21-17 in set four before USD closed with a 9-3 run to win set four. Denver won the first four points of set five and later served three match points before back-to-back kills from Juhnke and Slaughter gave USD a 19-17 fifth-set victory.

With that, South Dakota made its second NCAA tournament appearance in three years. Omaha was again the site when the Coyotes ran into 25thranked Missouri and a first-round defeat that had USD finish with a 15-7 record.

Williamson will have her entire roster back for the fall of 2021 including All-American Juhnke and allSummit performers Slaughter and Harms along with 2019 Setter of the Year Madison Jurgens.