SPEARFISH, S.D.- The Black Hills State Yellow Jackets (6-7 (2-2 RMAC)) are coming off a close loss to Chadron State, but had a great weekend in Colorado the week before. The Yellow Jackets are nearly .500 and will now head down the road to Rapid City, S.D., where they will face the South Dakota Mines Hardrockers (9-3 (3-1 RMAC)) in the final matchup of the RMAC Regional Pod at the King Center on Friday night. BHSU will look to bounce back and get back to .500.
 
KNOW BEFORE YOU GO:
Date/Time/Location: September 25, 2026 at 7 PM in King Center in Rapid City, S.D.
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 6-7 (2-2 RMAC) and has continued to hover around .500 record this early in the season. 6-6 was the latest BHSU has been at .500 in the D2 era passing 2013 where BHSU was 5-5. They were unable to stay .500 or above as they fell in a very close match to Chadron, where they led in every category. In the previous weekend, the Yellow Jackets were able to pull out a massive upset win versus Colorado Christian, which was the first time BHSU has won a game at CCU to get them to 6-5 before falling to CSU Pueblo in three sets. They have also had a big upset over Fort Lewis last week.
• 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 four five set matches going 3-1 this season in such matches. BHSU went 2-2 in five setters last year and are 42-41 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 are ranked in the top eight in the RMAC in seven categories. They are ranked sixth in the conference and 82^nd in the country in hitting percentage (.214), they are ranked eighth in win-loss percentage (.500), team assists (506), team kills (548), aces per set (1.44), team aces (65), and assists per set (11.24).
• 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 a five-way tie for seventh in the RMAC at 2-2.
• Carsyn Mettler was another top hitter for BHSU this past week. Mettler, who has remained consistent now has a hitting percentage of .300 in six out of 12 games this year. She is leading the team in kills with 140, a team-high .268 hitting percentage, and is third on the team with 19 total blocks. She has reached ten kills in seven games this year, including five of the last six. 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.
• Zoie Husman has started all ten games this year and after a fantastic tournament in Sioux Falls, she is second on the team with 128 kills and 17 aces. She is tied for second with 115 digs. She also has 16 blocks. Her best game of the year came versus Fort Lewis last week where she had her third double-double of her career with 21 kills and 13 digs. The 21 kills were a 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. This past weekend, she had 17 kills and 20 digs including a 12 kill, 11-dig double-double against CCU. She had her fifth double-double versus Chadron with 13 kills and 10 digs.
• The Yellow Jackets top three hitters are all within three kills of each other. Izzy Saiki has been one of the trio of BHSU hitters this year. The senior from Thronton, Colo. is in the midst of a career year. She is third on the team with 137 kills with a 2.80 kills per set mark and a .188 hitting percentage. She is also leading on the team in aces with 21. She also has 115 digs and nine total blocks. She had a career-high 20 kills versus Western New Mexico and had a team-high 26 kills this past weekend with six aces and 23 digs. She had her second double-double of the season with 12 kills and 11 digs versus Upper Iowa. Saiki had her sixth double-digit kill game and 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.
• Elena Atkinson and Emma Kruger have had almost identical seasons. After combining for 80 assists last weekend, they combined for 87 this weekend with Kruger leading 49 assists to 38. Atkinson sits atop with 253 assists and has averaged 5.16 assists per set this season, while Kruger has 238 and has averaged 4.93. The latter had a .302 set percentage to the latter's .368. Atkinson's best game came against Western New Mexico, where she had 33 assists, which the second most in her entire career. She had a .407 set percentage, which was the second-best on the weekend, 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 assist, 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 tenth and 11^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 all 12 games at the libero position. She is currently leading the team with 202 digs, reaching the 100-dig mark against Upper Iowa and the 200-dig mark versus Chadron. She is averaging 4.21 digs per set and has nine aces as well. Thompson had her career-high of 29 digs versus Fort Lewis, which past 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 13 games this year. Abril is sitting at 87 kills and is leading the team with 30.0 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 this past weekend versus Christian, where she had 14 kills on a .458 hitting percentage and four total blocks. She had five total blocks versus Chadron State.
• Peyton McLeod has continued her solid career with 13 starts in 13 games this year. She is second on the team in blocks with 27.0 and has 66 kills. McLeod had a career-high nine kills versus UMary in the first tournament, and then matched it again versus Upper Iowa. She then matched it twice this past weekend getting nine kills in both games versus CCU and CSUP with a .553 hitting percentage versus CCU and three total blocks. She had five total blocks versus Chadron.
• Head coach Grayson DuBose enters his second season with the Yellow Jackets and has a BHSU record of 12-27 (4-14 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 201-260 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.

 
SOUTH DAKOTA MINES STORYLINES

• South Dakota Mines currently sits at 9-3 (3-1 RMAC) after taking their first three games of RMAC play before falling to Colorado Christian in a five-set thriller last weekend. South Dakota Mines has key RMAC wins over Fort Lewis and Pueblo, while also taking down Western. They defeated the RMAC Preseason favorite UCCS in non-conference play at UCCS's home tournament in three sets.
• Their non-conference schedule was incredibly successful as SDM went 6-2 in non-conference play, besides that win over UCCS, they also beat Michigan Tech, Midwestern State, Lake Superior State, Minnesota Crookston and RMAC rival Chadron State. Their only losses in non-conference play were St. Edward's and Jamestown is who is now receiving votes.
• The Hardrockers are 5-1 at home this year with that sole loss being St. Edward's and were 4-5 at home last year.
• The Hardrockers  are top 50 in the country in eight stats so far this year. They are 17^th in kills per set (13.91), 20^th in team kills (654), 25^th in assists per set (12.62), 28^th in team assists (593), 31^st in hitting percentage (.252), 35^th in team toal blocks (99.5), 45^th in blocks per set (2.12), and 45^th in win-loss percentage (.750).
• The Hardrockers were picked eighth in the RMAC Preseason Coaches' Poll with 107 points, just behind Fort Lewis and a bit ahead of Westminster. They were coming off a year where they went 10-16 (7-7 RMAC) and finished tied for eighth in the conference. They are currently tied for the lead in the RMAC at 3-1.
• Lexi Glendenning, the sophomore who earned First Team All-RMAC as a freshman last year, is back and has been very good for the Hardrockers. Glendenning is 55^th in the country in total kills and third in the RMAC at 155. She is averaging 3.37 kills per set and has a .335 hitting percentage. She also has 19 total blocks. After a rougher start to the year, Glendenning is on a role, she has reached double-digit kills in six of her last seven games and has reached 20 in three of those games. She had a season-high 23 kills versus CSU Pueblo. She's also had two or more blocks in each of the past five games. This past weekend, she had 41 kills with 23 versus Pueblo and 18 versus Christian.
• Cate Warren is the other part of the hitting duo for SDM. She has 152 kills, which is fourth in the RMAC and 63^rd in the country, and has 3.38 kills per set and a .284 hitting percentage. The sophomore from Dallas, Texas has reached double-digit kills in ten of the 12 games this year and eight of her last nine. Her season-high was 21 kills versus Michigan Tech. She also has 23 total blocks with a block in each of the last ten games. She was named RMAC Offensive Player of the Week after week three for having 33 kills and over a .400 hitting percentage versus WCU and FLC. Last weekend, she had 32 total kills with 18 versus CSU Pueblo and had three blocks.
• Maria Bouman, the Spearfish native, is having a great year as a sophomore. The former Spartan is leading the team in blocks and is seventh in the RMAC with 45. She's also fifth in the RMAC in hitting percentage at .333 and is 53^rd in the country in service aces with 22. She's averaging .96 blocks per set and has had three or more blocks in nine of 12 games. She's had a career-high seven blocks twice this year versus Lake Superior State and Western Colorado. She has reached double-digit kills three times this year with a season-high 14 kills versus Midwestern State. She's coming off a weekend, where she had 12 total kills, five total aces, and six total blocks.
• The top setter for the Hardrockers is Emily Henderson, who is fourth in the RMAC in total assists (294). She's sixth in the RMAC in assists per set (6.26). The freshman from Cedar Rapids, Iowa has over 20 assists in eight of 12 games and each of the last seven. She had a career-high 38 assists this past weekend versus CSU Pueblo, while having a combined 66 assists over two games and 23 digs, including a career-high 19 digs versus Christian.
• Head Coach Lauren Prochazka is in her ninth season with the Hardrockers. The 2024 RMAC Coach of the Year has a 98-117 record with SDM since taking  over that included six ten-win seasons and five in a row from 2021-2025. She is almost about to make it six straight. She's had two winning seasons in her career including an 18-9 record in 2024. Prior to joining the Hardrockers, she was the head coach at D3 Minnesota Morris and now has a career 140-140 record.

 
SERIES HISTORY

• Since joining D2, BHSU holds the 17-15 series lead over the Hardrockers. From 2016-2021, BHSU won ten straight, but have now lost each of the past five matchups, with their last win coming in a neutral site matchup in Chadron in 2023.
• Last year, the Yellow Jackets met twice with the Hardrockers with both matchups in Rapid City. Despite a really good showing in the opening match, BHSU fell 3-1 to SDM and then fell 3-0 later in the year.