RAPID CITY, S.D. --- The South Dakota Mines women's volleyball team will close out the regular season Friday evening as the Hardrockers play host to Chadron State College at the King Center in Rapid City, South Dakota.
There will be quite a bit on the line for the 'Rockers as they hold the last playoff spot for the postseason RMAC tournament according to the RPI standings released earlier this week by the league office.
A lot can still happen with another week of competition still to play across the conference, but to solidify their claim to make their first-ever appearance in the RMAC tournament, the Hardrockers need to defeat one of their biggest rivals – The Chadron State Eagles.
The teams met to open the season in a non-conference bout on Jan. 29 in Nebraska, where the CSC defeated the 'Rockers, 3-0. Since then, both teams went on to accumulate identical records of 4-9.
Jacey Koethe leads the Hardrockers in kills with 199 for the season and is also the team's leader in total blocks at 53 with an average of 1.06 blocks per set.
Anna Thomas has the most digs on the season with 199.
The Eagle offense, is led by
Lexi Hurtado with 105 kills, saw help from freshman
Olivia Moten-Schell and junior
Amelia Berg in the last match against Colorado Christian as the pair had six and five kills respectively. Hurtado led the match with nine.
In the first matchup of these teams earlier in the season, Hurtado and Moten-Schell each had 12 kills while senior
Chandler Hageman had seven. Junior
Breshawna Kelly also supplied 34 assists in the win, averaging a season-best 11.3 per set.
The Eagle defense held the Hardrockers to three sets in the previous matchup with help from freshman hitter
Rhiannon Nez who led the match in blocks with five and from senior libero
Karli Noble who had 16 digs.
Friday's match is set to start at 7 p.m. and will allow a limited amount of fans. The rivalry matchup will also be streamed live on the Hardrocker Network by logging onto
www.gorockers.com.
The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference championships are set to begin on Thursday, Apr. 8 and run through Sunday, Apr. 11. The times and matchups have yet to be announced.
