VERMILLION, S.D. --  South Dakota finished off a perfect 3-0 slate in the South Dakota Classic with a thrilling five-set win over Milwaukee in front of close to 1,000 fans Friday evening inside the Sanford Coyote Sports Center.
 
The Coyotes showed great resiliency in climbing out of a 2-1 set deficit to win the fourth and fifth set in a battle between Coach Leanne Williamson's current squad and her alma mater.
 
South Dakota used tremendous efforts to bookend the match, hitting .517 with 17 kills to take the opening set 25-21 and coming back to hit .588 in a tremendous fifth set to close it out 15-12.
 
In between, Milwaukee won sets two and three 25-21, and 25-15 before South Dakota claimed set four 25-16. The Panthers hit .538 in the tremendous fifth set that saw a combined 19 kills and only two attack errors.
 
"I think that this match really tested us and tested our ability to want to make changes, but to stay together when things weren't going well," said Williamson. "I think it would have been really easy after losing sets two and three and three not being a good game for us at all to kind of back off and maybe let that go.
 
"I really love seeing how determined our team got and we really flipped our mentality going into set four and I just felt like there were very much in the mindset of we have to make plays. We have to go make things happen instead of waiting for things to happen and it really showed."
 
The Coyotes set a Division I best with 19 total team blocks during the contest, including a strong eight block fourth set.
 
"We had eight blocks in set four by itself, which is huge," said Williamson. "Our right sides did make some changes just in terms of timing on their outsides and once they did that we were getting better touches.
 
Maddie Wiedenfeld had six of her 10 block assists in the match in the fourth set, which Aimee Adams had three.
 
Madison Harms had a career-high 15 kills to go with four solo block and three block assists in the match while producing a .440 hitting percentage. In the three matches, the junior, who missed the opening weekend, had 33 kills, hit .464 and produced six solo and 11 assisted blocks for 17 total blocks, or 1.55 blocks per set.
 
Elizabeth Juhnke contributed 13 kills and eight digs and four block assists to the victory that also saw a big 12 kill effort from Sami Slaughter.
 
Slaughter had five kills and Harms three in the decisive fifth set as South Dakota evened its season record at 3-3.
 
"I think last year, in a lot of situations, she (Harms) was more of that defensive presence and she's continuing to be that, but now she's kind of fond her groove a little bit more offensively and given us a spark," said Williamson. "She's allowed our outsides to have more one-on-one situations because now you have to pay attention to our middles too.
 
"So I think Jurgens did a good job of getting people involved in finding the right people at the right times."
 
Adams finished with eight kills, Wiedenfeld chipped in four while Jurgens provided 40 assists to go with 11 digs and two service aces. Lolo Weideman had 13 digs, Juhnke eight and Brooklyn Bollweg seven.
 
South Dakota will travel to Wichita, Kansas, next weekend to take part in the Shocker Classic against host Wichita State along with 19^th-ranked Creighton and Wyoming.