Box Score

ST. PAUL, MINN.:  Senior Laura Hegerle had a career-high 19 kills to lead the No. 13 Southwest Minnesota State volleyball team to a 3-1 (17-25, 25-22, 25-17, 25-19) win over Alaska-Anchorage at the Concordia-St. Paul Classic Friday afternoon.

The Mustangs improve to 8-1, while the Seawolves drop to 8-3.

Hegerle's performance capped off a solid hitting performance by a trio of Mustangs; the freshman duo of Maggie Geske and Devin Diedrich put up good offensive numbers for SMSU as well.  The two combined for 23 kills, with each of them posting at least a .320 hitting percentage.

Senior Sarah Quiram finished with a match-high 23 digs, while junior setter Sara Graf quarterbacked the offense with a match-high 49 assists.  Graf also had 20 digs.

Unranked Alaska-Anchorage was coming off an upset win against No. 8 Augustana (S.D.) earlier in the morning and was looking to take down another top-25 team for the second time in one day.  And during the first set, it looked like the Seawolves had a chance to do it.

Alaska-Anchorage took advantage of SMSU's sloppy defense in the first set to win the match by a convincing eight points.

But SMSU rallied around its big hitters to steal the momentum from the Seawolves and win the next three sets and take the match.  As the match progressed, so did SMSU's defensive stability.  The Mustangs held the Alaska-Anchorage to well under .200 hitting percentage in the final two sets.

The Mustangs will play one more match today, taking on Augustana (S.D.) at 5 p.m.  The match-up with their NSIC counterpart will be a non-conference contest but will count towards both teams' regional rankings.