CHADRON, Neb. – With a rare one-match weekend, Chadron State volleyball fell short against regional rivals South Dakota Mines in an RMAC conference game Saturday night, with the Hardrockers winning by set scores of 25-19, 25-20, 25-15 in the Chicoine Center.
Kally Kirkwood had seven kills, tied for the team lead, on an errorless 13 attempts for a .538 hitting percentage and also shared the team lead with two blocks on the night. Mataya Ward (.040, 25 attempts) and Shelby Harding (.278, 18 attempts) also had seven kills apiece for the Eagles, with Harding tallying the second-most kills in one match of her career.
Rylee Ward and Jillian Donovan shared the team lead with nine digs while Harding had seven. Alejandra Briseno played in every set of the match for the first time in three weeks and contributed a season-high six digs.
The loss, which is CSC's second of the season to the Hardrockers, extends the Eagles' current losing streak to eight games and drops CSC's record to 4-16 overall and 1-9 in the RMAC. South Dakota Mines improved to 7-13 overall and rallied back to .500 at 5-5 in conference play.
In the first set, South Dakota Mines won the first three points of the match before Chadron tied it up with two Hardrocker errors sandwiched around an Avery Lacy ace. The teams then began alternating points as the Hardrockers and Eagles were tied at every point score between 3-3 and 12-12.
South Dakota Mines landed the big punch with a 5-0 run that established a 16-12 lead. After the Eagles closed the deficit to two at 18-16, SDM outscored Chadron State 7-3 the rest of the way to close the first set.
Chadron State made the first move to try to even the match score, taking a 7-4 lead after back-to-back kills from Shelby Harding, who had four of her seven match kills in set number two.
A third Harding kill plus an SDM attack error gave CSC its biggest lead at 10-6, but the Hardrockers rallied to tie the score for the first time at 13-13 and took the lead for the first time at 16-15, then hammered home seven kills out of their last eight points to win the second set.
The Hardrockers were motivated to finish in the minimum three, racing out to an 11-2 advantage in the third set. One of the two CSC points during that Hardrocker run was a kill from true freshman Sydney Strode, a Parker, Colorado native who was part of the starting lineup in the third set for the first collegiate action of her career.
The Eagles showed some fight, winning five straight points, including two kills from senior Natali Keni, but the Hardrockers responded with a 5-1 run to take back control and comfortably saw out the rest of the match with a 25-15 third-set win.
South Dakota Mines had the statistical edge in kills (45-31), digs (52-49) and aces (7-2). They hit .304 for the match and hit .290 or better in all three sets while Chadron State hit .154 as a team, with a match-best .250 in set number two.
Chadron State will play two matches next weekend while the Chicoine Center will host three as Chadron will be the location of an RMAC "Power Pod." The Eagles will face Black Hills State on Thursday, October 30 and New Mexico Highlands on Saturday, November 1, with the Yellow Jackets and Cowgirls facing one another in Chadron in between on Halloween night.
