SPEARFISH, S.D.- The Black Hills State Yellow Jackets (7-11 (3-5 RMAC)) are heading to Chadron for the final game of the three game road trip. The Yellow Jackets will be facing the Chadron State Eagles (7-11 (1-7 RMAC)) in the Chicoine Center in Chadron, Nebraska at 6 PM. BHSU was able to get a massive win against New Mexico Highlands in their past weekend to get out of a losing streak and will look to keep the momentum going against a team they lost to earlier this year.
 
KNOW BEFORE YOU GO:
Date/Time/Location: October 13, 2026 at 6 PM in Chicoine Center in Chadron, Neb.
Live Stream: RMAC Network (Pay-Per-View)
Tickets: Tickets can be purchased at the link above.
 
BLACK HILLS STATE STORYLINES:

• Black Hills State is now 7-11 (3-5 RMAC) as they continue to stay in the RMAC playoff race. BHSU was able to pull off a huge come-from-behind five-set win against Highlands in the 1-1 weekend, where they also fell to Adams. BHSU was able to end their six-game losing streak with that win and that moves them to 3-5 in conference play as they have big wins over Christian and Fort Lewis.
• The Yellow Jackets were able to have a 4-4 non-conference schedule after taking out MSU Billings, Western New Mexico, UMary, and Upper Iowa in the non-conference tournaments. BHSU was able to get revenge on UMary, who beat them early in the season as they produced the best hitting percentage in BHSU's D2 history, hitting .452 over the course of the game with only six attack errors.
• The Yellow Jackets entered the season fresh off a season where they had the most wins in a season since 2021 and the most conference wins since 2022. The Yellow Jackets went 6-20 (2-12 RMAC) last season. They went 3-1 in the 1^st International Bank Homecoming Classic before entering RMAC play and pulled out two wins over Chadron, one of them in the regional pod, and a win over Western Colorado in regular conference play.
• The Green and Gold have played in six five set matches going 4-2 this season in such matches. BHSU went 2-2 in five setters last year and are 43-42 since joining D2 in matches that go five sets.
• The Yellow Jackets win over Fort Lewis was the first time since 2021 that BHSU had won their RMAC opener.
• The Yellow Jackets win over Colorado Christian was the first time BHSU has beaten CCU in Lakewood. They were 0-10 in their previous matchups at CCU.
• 6-6 was the latest BHSU has been at .500 in the D2 era passing 2013 where BHSU was 5-5.
• The Yellow Jackets are ranked in the top nine in the RMAC in six categories. They are ranked seventh in the conference in total digs (990), team total attacks (2,446), eighth in hitting percentage (.197), team assists (758), team kills (811), and ninth in service aces (97).
• The Yellow Jackets are featuring a pretty new team this year. They are only bringing back three players who started 15 or more games last year and only have five that started more than ten. They graduated five key seniors for the team last year and are bringing in six freshman and one transfer.
• BHSU was projected to finish 14^th in the RMAC Preseason Coaches' Poll with 43 points, just ahead of Chadron State and one point behind Western Colorado. They are now in tenth in the RMAC at 3-5.
• The Yellow Jackets top three hitters are all within range of each other. Izzy Saiki has been the top of BHSU's trio this year. The senior from Thronton, Colo. is in the midst of a career year. She is leading the team and was the first one to 200 kills with 201 kills with a 2.91 kills per set mark. She is also leading on the team in aces and is second in the RMAC with 27. She has 163 digs and 16 total blocks. She has 11 double-digit kill games including each of the last four games. She had a career-high 21 kills versus MSU Denver. Saiki had her third double-double of the year with 18 kills and 15 digs versus CCU. The 15 digs were a career-high and the five aces during that game were also a career-high. She had another double-double versus Chadron with 10 kills and a season-high 17 digs. She had her career-high 21 kills versus MSUD and then had her sixth double-double of the season versus UCCS with 10 kills and 12 digs. This past weekend, she had 28 kills and 22 digs including 17 kills and 16 digs versus NMHU.
• Carsyn Mettler is another top hitter for BHSU. Mettler, who has remained consistent now has a hitting percentage of .300 in nine out of 18 games this year. She is second on the team in kills with 189, a team-high .255 hitting percentage, and has 25.0 total blocks. She has reached ten kills in ten games this year, including eight of the last ten. She had a .320 hitting percentage against #6 Washburn, and then a .455 hitting percentage versus UMary. She had 13 kills and two blocks versus Upper Iowa two weekends ago, but she had 28 kills in RMAC Weekend one with 15 versus Fort Lewis and 13 versus WCU. She had a .440 hitting percentage versus WCU. She had 18 kills this past weekend. She had 17 kills with a .400 hitting percentage and three blocks versus Chadron. She had 12 kills with a .333 hitting percentage against SDM. She had 13 kills versus Highlands.
• Zoie Husman has started all 18 games this year and after a fantastic tournament in Sioux Falls, she is third on the team with 167 kills and second with 24 aces. She is second with 166 digs. She also has 27 blocks, which is tied for third on the team. Her best game of the year came versus Fort Lewis where she had her third double-double of her career with 21 kills and 13 digs. The 21 kills were career-high and her first time reaching 20 kills. She also had a career-high 24.5 points versus FLC as well as two total blocks. She had 17 kills versus UMary and a .667 hitting percentage, which was also a career high. She had a 17 kill, 13 dig game versus WNMU, with a career-high three total blocks. She had her second double of her season with a 13 kill, 15 dig game versus Upper Iowa, and tied her career high with three blocks.
• Elena Atkinson and Emma Kruger have had almost identical seasons. After combining for 76 assists last weekend, they combined for 77 this weekend with Atkinson leading 46 assists to 31. Atkinson sits atop with 347 assists and has averaged 5.03 assists per set this season, while Kruger has 311 and has averaged 4.57. Atkinson's best game came against Chadron State, where she had 31 assists, which the second most in her entire career. She had a .470 set percentage, which was the second-best on the year, only behind MSUB, where she had a .514 set percentage. Kruger's best game came against Fort Lewis, where she had a career-high 31 assists and 7 digs with an insane .508 set percentage. She just had a massive 30 assists, 22-dig game versus CCU with a .441 set percentage. When BHSU broke the record for attack percentage in a game in the D2 era against WCU, she had 25 assists with an impressive .568 set percentage. They are ranked ninth and 12^th in the RMAC in total assists.
• Keira Thompson has been the top libero for BHSU this year. The junior from Lakewood, Colo. who is in her second season as a Yellow Jacket has started 14 of 16 games at the libero position. She is currently leading the team with 229 digs, reaching the 100-dig mark against Upper Iowa and the 200-dig mark versus Chadron. She is averaging 3.58 digs per set and has nine aces as well. Thompson had her career-high of 29 digs versus Fort Lewis, which passed her previous career-high set in the game before versus Upper Iowa of 21. She averaged 5.8 digs per set. Last weekend, Thompson earned her first RMAC Defensive Player of the Week award for having 44 digs in seven sets averaging 6.29 digs per set and reaching 20 digs in each game including 24 digs versus CCU and 20 digs in only three sets versus CSUP.
• Izabel Abril has been one of the other players to start all 18 games this year. Abril is sitting at 105 kills and is now second on the team with 44.0 total blocks. She had her Yellow Jacket career-high with 14 kills versus Fort Lewis, where she had a .417 attack percentage, and four total blocks, which is just her second time since joining BHSU reaching ten kills. She matched that mark a week later versus Christian, where she had 14 kills on a .458 hitting percentage and four total blocks. She had eight total blocks last weekend with five versus MSU Denver.
• Peyton McLeod has continued her solid career with 18 starts in 18 games this year. She is leading the team in blocks with 48.0 and has  kills. McLeod had a career-high 12 kills versus MSU Denver with four blocks and a .333 hitting percentage. She's had nine kills four times, but MSU Denver was her first double-digit kill game of her career. She had nine kills and five blocks last weekend versus NMHU.
• Head coach Grayson DuBose enters his second season with the Yellow Jackets and has a BHSU record of 13-32 (5-17 RMAC) but has 14 years of head coaching experience at the D1 level prior to joining BHSU. He was head coach at Utah State for all 14 years and has a 202-265 career record with two WAC Coach of the Year awards and one NCAA Division 1 Tournament appearance. DuBose was able to finally get his 200^th career win against Fort Lewis in the five-set thriller.

 
CHADRON STATE STORYLINES

• Chadron State currently sits at 7-11 (1-7 RMAC) after going 0-2 this past weekend. They have now lost five in a row and eight of the last ten. They do have one RMAC win versus Western Colorado and also beat BHSU in the RMAC Regional Pod. They had their lowest set weekend of the year this past week, where they lost 0-3 to MSU Denver and UCCS.
• Their non-conference schedule was quite successful as Chadron took down Lake Superior State and Minnesota Crookston in the Hardrocker Tournament and then took out UMary, Upper Iowa, and Sioux Falls in the Sioux Falls Classic going 5-3 in non-conference play.
• Chadron has been a pesky team this year as they have played in a lot of multi-set matches and have reached five sets in six of their last ten games going 1-5 in such matches.
• The Eagles are 0-5 in home games this year. They went 3-10 in home games last year with wins over UMary, Western, and BHSU.
• The Eagles are top 75 in the country in six stats this year. They are 23^rd in blocks per set (2.26), 25^th in total blocks (158.0), 33^rd in team attacks per set (37.60), 49^th in digs per set (16.66), 63^rd in team digs (1,166), and 72^nd in team total attacks (2,632).
• The Eagles were picked 15^th in the RMAC Preseason Coaches' Poll with 38 points, just behind BHSU. They were coming off a year where they went 5-21 (1-13 RMAC) and finished 14^th in the conference. They are currently in a three-way tie for 13^th at 1-7.
• Sarah Meservey has been the big reason why they are one of the top blocking teams in the RMAC. Meservey, a junior middle blocker from Spanish Fork, Utah, has 93 total blocks, which is 6^th in the nation and first in the RMAC. She is averaging 1.33 blocks per set, which is ninth in the nation and second in the RMAC. She has had at least four blocks in 14 games and had a season-high 13 versus South Dakota Mines. She was named RMAC Defensive Player of the Week for her work in the RMAC Regional Pod as she had 18 blocks with 13 versus SDM and five versus BHSU. She then had ten blocks versus Adams the next game. This past weekend, she had seven total blocks with six against MSU Denver.
• Mataya Ward is back for the Eagles and is the leading hitter again. The Belle Fourche, S.D. native currently leads the team in kills with 209, points with 237, and is second in aces with 17. She also has 80 digs and 20 blocks. Ward has reached ten or more kills in ten games this season and has at least 15 in six of them. She just had easily her best game of the season versus the Mountaineers as she had a season-high 21 kills, a season-high nine digs, and three aces with a .413 hitting percentage. She tied her season-high of 21 kills versus Adams State. She's been held to less than ten kills in the past three games and only had 16 kills combined this past weekend.
• Avery Lacy is the top libero for CSC. Lacy, who is a senior from Windsor, Colorado, is third in the RMAC in total digs with 308 and fifth in digs per set at 4.40. She has had double-digit digs in all but three games this year and has reached 20 five times. She's had a season-high 32 digs versus Adams State and also had 28 digs versus Highlands that next weekend. This past weekend, she had 23 digs combined and had 14 digs versus MSU Denver.
• Jillian Donovan is once again the sole setter for Chadron. Donovan, a sophomore from Lincoln, has 433 assists this year, which is fifth in the conference and 6.56 assists per set, which is fifth in the RMAC. Donovan has had 20 assists in 12 of 18 games this year including a season-high 42 assists versus CCU. She is also at 155 digs and has reached double digits seven times. This past weekend she had 45 total assists with 26 versus MSU Denver and 19 versus UCCS.
• Head Coach Jennifer Stadler is in her eighth season in charge of the Chadron State volleyball program in 2026, accumulating a 63-126 record in her first seven seasons. The former BHSU player, assistant coach, and interim head coach is one win away from matching her third highest winning season of her CSC career. She also spent eight years prior at Sheridan College.

 
SERIES HISTORY

• Since joining D2, Chadron holds the series lead at 20-15with BHSU winning most in the early 2010s. Since 2020, BHSU is 5-9 versus the Eagles.
• Last year, the Yellow Jackets met three times with the Eagles making this the fourth matchup between the regional foes in under a year. BHSU was able to take two out of three versus Chadron last year winning the first two in Spearfish 3-2 and 3-0 before losing the third in the RMAC Power Pod 0-3. The Green and Gold reversed swept Chadron in the opening meeting last year and then won six straight sets sweeping the second match before falling in all three sets in Chadron.
• Earlier this season, Chadron came to A2 Arena and beat BHSU in four sets. BHSU dominated the first set 25-12, was up big in the second, but a comeback by Chadron led to winning each of the next three sets by two points each at 25-23, 25-23, and 26-24. Mettler, Husman, and Saiki each had double-digit kills, while Atkinson had 31 assists.