Jurgens at the heart of magical run

The University of South Dakota volleyball season is an accumulation of progress. Right up until that last game against Denver in the Summit League Tournament championship, the Coyotes were sorting through the ways they were getting better. 

When it counted most, USD had its best volleyball ready to go at the Sanford Pentagon and in doing so qualified for the NCAA tournament for the second time in three years under head coach Leanne Williamson. 

In the middle of it all – from the start of the season to what is now preparation for an opening round match against Missouri on Wednesday – is Madison Jurgens, the Coyotes’ starting setter for the last three seasons.

‘“Throughout the year we focused on ourselves,” said Jurgens, a native of Odell, Nebraska. “We watched the film of our opponents but we did a lot of work within our team fine-tuning how we play. Last spring when COVID shut everything down, we really didn’t have the opportunity to do that. It really paid off in the end.”

How epic were those Summit tournament matches at the Pentagon? Both the semifinal win over Kansas City and the final vs. Denver demanded tie-breaker fifth sets. Against Kansas City, the Coyotes were facing a team that defeated them twice during the regular season. 

The scores of the games against Denver in the final tell a wild story with a happy ending. After going down 2-0 with 25-19 and 28-26 losses, the Coyotes won three consecutive games by scores of 27-25, 26-24 and 19-17. They survived match points four times in the marathon final.

“They trusted the process and learned from the tough moments,” said USD coach Leanne Williamson. “They got better every day and put themselves in position to win two very tough matches. We’ve been celebrating that but also preparing for that next step.”

The next step is an 11 a.m. contest on Wednesday against No. 25 Missouri in Omaha. During a season that was postponed – but not cancelled – by the pandemic, getting any kind of a national tournament played was going to be a bit of an upset. 

When presented with the opportunity to continue playing, however, the Coyotes took advantage of as best they could.

“When it came down to the conference tournament, we were playing because we love the game so much,” Jurgens said. “We were playing every point like it was our last because a lot of those points actually could have been our last.”

So it wasn’t just a cliché in this case. The sustained poise and confidence the Coyotes had to deliver will make for lifetime memories for the team. Even a win on Wednesday against Missouri would not change that. 

Coordination for that effort started with Jurgens, who perhaps more than anyone else, was delivering that poise. 

“She’s very much a person who thrives on getting a lot of reps,” Williamson said. “During the COVID time she wasn’t getting those reps. There were times she had to weather the storm a little bit. She had to trust her training from past years if she was going to get better. As the year progressed you saw her get back to who she is again.”

In other words, it got easier to ignore the obstacles brought on by the pandemic. 

“We saw her whole game get better,” Williamson said. “Her blocking has gotten better. Her defense has gotten better. Her serving has always been a staple of hers. It’s not just about the setting. She’s done a lot in other areas to make this team better.”

Jurgens was one of Nebraska’s best high school volleyball players as a junior and senior despite the fact that she was at a small school. Odell has 300 people and Diller-Odell High School, where Jurgens was the Lincoln Star Journal’s player of the year, has a little more than 100 students in grades 7 through 12. 

“I’m really grateful that my parents made sacrifices so that I could play club volleyball,” Jurgens said. “I don’t think I would be where I am otherwise.”

Diller-Odell finished second in the state her senior year in Class C-2, where she did everything, finishing her high school career with 1,478 kills. She continued to develop her skills as a setter at the same time. 

That process is not yet complete. That applies to this year as well as whatever comes next. 

“I’m just really grateful for the opportunity to play at USD,” she said. “Not a lot of people from small towns get that kind of chance, but I did and I’m loving every minute of it.”