Nov. 9—MITCHELL — Familiar foes in both the Southeast South Dakota Conference and in the Class A SoDak 16 will tangle once again with No. 6-seeded Wagner and No. 11 Winner facing off for a state volleyball tournament berth on Tuesday night at Mitchell High School.
This will be the second year in a row and third time since 2022 that the Red Raiders and Warriors will have played with a state tournament berth on the line. Last season, Wagner won as the No. 12 seed with a 3-1 victory over No. 5 Winner in Chamberlain. In 2022, Wagner was the No. 1 seed for the Class A postseason and defeated No. 16 Winner 3-0 in the SoDak 16 in Plankinton.
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The Red Raiders (26-5) and Warriors (20-9) have split the past eight meetings four apiece, but Wagner has won three in a row, including both this season. Wagner defeated Winner in five sets in the teams’ regular-season meeting on Oct. 20 in Winner. In that match, Hannah Holzbauer had 22 kills and hit .315 for the contest, while Payton Sargent had 19 kills for the Warriors. Brianna Fuchs had six total blocks for Wagner, which finished with a 12-6 edge in team blocks and 13-6 in service aces.
Holzbauer has the team lead in kills for Wagner with 343, while Ravyn Medricky has 238 kills. Braxton Nedved has tallied 831 assists, leads the team with 52 aces and hits a team-best .404 hitting percentage. Fuchs has 58 total blocks and Medricky has 52 blocks. Holzbauer has 378 digs, while Mateya Bruguier has 287 digs and Hayden Knudsen has 268 digs this season.
Wagner is seeking its fifth state tournament berth since 2021. Winners of nine straight matches, the Red Raiders are 8-1 in away matches and 7-2 in contests played on neutral floors this season.
For the Warriors, Sargent has tallied five kills per set and is hitting .298 for the season, tallying 446 kills. Seventh Zeigler has 204 kills and 43 service aces on the season, and Alice Wilson leads the back row for Winner with 494 digs. Sargent has 322 digs, and freshman Aubrey Heenan has 287 digs this season. Madelyn Danford has 134 kills, while Josie Corkle has 837 assists.
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Winner has qualified for all 11 versions of the SoDak 16 played since 2016 in Class A, reaching the state tournament in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2024. In 2024, as a 9-seed, Winner won a five-set match over Mobridge-Pollock in Fort Pierre to reach the state bracket.
The match at MHS on Tuesday night is scheduled for 7 p.m. It is the second match in a Class A doubleheader in Mitchell, with No. 7 Dakota Valley (22-11) and No. 10 Lakota Tech (32-7) playing for a state tournament berth starting at 5:30 p.m.
PLATTE — No. 14-seeded Platte-Geddes will get a chance to pick up a state tournament berth on Tuesday night, heading west to take on No. 3 St. Thomas More in Wall. The match is tentatively scheduled for 8 p.m. Central time.
Platte-Geddes (21-10) last made the state tournament in 2023, which was the second of back-to-back state berths. The Black Panthers, who finished 14-20 last season, took a set off the No. 1 seed Dakota Valley in the 2025 SoDak 16 — becoming the first team to do that to any Class A 1-seed since the format was created in 2016 — but Dakota Valley emerged with a 3-1 win in Centerville.
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Platte-Geddes is led by junior outside hitter Kori VanDerWerff, who has a .249 hitting percentage and 389 kills on the season. Seniors Ava Olson (173 kills) and Jerni Severson (147 kills) help lead the hitting for P-G. Taylor Schrank has tallied 369 digs and Claire Maydew has 315 digs. Kolbi Hoffman has 771 assists for the Black Panthers, while Hoffman and Maydew each lead the team with 40 service aces.
The Black Panthers will face St. Thomas More (30-7), which is playing in the SoDak 16 for the third year in a row with its highest seed yet as the No. 3. STM made the state bracket last season as the No. 9 seed and topping Miller in four sets. STM has won five matches in a row this season. It is the first matchup between Platte-Geddes and STM since 2017 when they met in a mid-season tournament and P-G won 2-0.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
