The sophomore hitter duo of Kaitlynn Peterson and Tezra Rudzitis combined for 18 kills but weren’t able to lead St. Thomas to victory as South Dakota State beat the Tommies 3-0 on Thursday at Schoenecker Arena.
The Tommies (4-8, 0-1 Summit League) lost to the Jackrabbits (3-10, 1-0) to start Summit League play. St. Thomas fell 25-16 and 25-23 in the first and second sets. Despite taking the final set to 26-24 in a combative comeback attempt, the game ended with no sets won by the team.
“I felt like our team worked hard and prepared well and tonight wasn’t our night,” coach Thanh Pham said.
St. Thomas started out aggressive, evenly matching South Dakota State’s 36 attack attempts, but made seven attack errors to the Jackrabbits’ four. That proved to be crucial to the Tommies’ performance, as they made 20 throughout the matchup.
“We just have to make better choices,” Pham said. “I think we’re more than capable of doing it. It’s just going to take a little bit of practice.
The Tommies dropped their first set 25-16 despite leading 9-6 early in the game.
The second set proved to be a closer contest thanks in part to first-year setter Morgan Kealy’s 12 assists. St. Thomas tied the set at 22 before South Dakota State quickly topped St. Thomas 25-23.
“There were 14 times the score was tied and that just shows a lot of resilience from our team,” Pham said.
The Tommies held the lead for much of the final set, helped by a 7-2 run. This was rounded out by a kill by Rudzitis that made the score 17-11. The Jackrabbits ripped the lead away from the Tommies to make it 25-24 and added one more point to wrap up the third set and finish their sweep.
“We don’t make any excuses,” Pham said. “We know we can play better and we know that’s our goal for next time.”
The Tommies will begin their dual slate of away games in North Dakota when they play North Dakota State Thursday, Sep. 28 at Bentson-Bunker Fieldhouse.
Adam Mueller can be reached at muel7541@stthomas.edu.