VERMILLION, S.D. – South Dakota volleyball pulled out a gritty four-set win over Oral Roberts as Summit League play opened Friday inside the Sanford Coyote Sports Center.
 
The Coyotes had a .293 hitting proficiency in downing the Golden Eagles 25-21, 25-15, 19-25, 25-19.
 
Sami Slaughter posted a career-high 23 kills to go with a .419 hitting percentage as South Dakota pushed its win streak to nine.
 
Elizabeth Juhnke tallied 17 kills and 12 digs while Maddie Wiedenfeld had nine kills and a .500 hitting percentage in the match.
 
"Oral Roberts came in here and played a very good game," coach Leanne Williamson said. "They started hitting the ball really well. They got us out of system a little but more than what we've been used too.
 
"So we had to be a little bit more predictable in certain situations offensively, which allowed them to play actually really good defense against us as well."
 
The Coyotes tallied 59 kills in the match and defensively limited Oral Roberts to a .185 hitting percentage.
 
Anne Rasmussen paced the defense with 18 digs while the senior also had seven assists. Madison Jurgens contributed 47 assists and 11 digs in the win.
 
"I liked how our team responded to set three," Williamson said. "I know we'd love to be able to say we're going to go three and zero all the time, but we're not.
 
"For our team to come back in and play pretty strong from the start of set four and make some of those changes that need to be made and actually work through some of the errors that I think we aren't used to making was really important for us to see that we can do that and still have success and still create a lot of energy."
 
The Coyotes, now 12-1, play match two of a three-match home stand to begin Summit League play on Sunday against North Dakota at 1 p.m.