DENVER - The fifth-seeded University of Denver volleyball team will play fourth-seeded North Dakota State in the opening round of the Summit League tournament on Sunday at 5 p.m. MT in Brookings, South Dakota.
Denver is 21-8 all-time against NDSU and won the most recent matchup, 3-1, in Hamilton Gymnasium on Oct. 30, 2025. In the last postseason matchup between the two teams, the Pioneers defeated the Bison, 3-1, in the opening round of the Summit League Tournament in Kansas City on November 24, 2024.
The winner of the semifinal match will face the top-seeded South Dakota State Jackrabbits on Monday night.
POSTSEASON UNDER PENDERGAST
• Lost in Semifinal in 2023 to Omaha
• Lost in Semifinal in 2024 to South Dakota State
• Denver has won four of the last 10 tournament titles.
• The Pioneers are looking to win their first Summit League Tournament title since 2019 and the first under head coach
Megan Pendergast.
BALANCED ATTACK
•Denver has four players averaging 2.00 kills/set or more:
Ava Reynolds,
Genevieve Lewis,
Jamia Johnson and
Alicia Thibodeau
•Reynolds, Lewis and Johnson have all surpassed their kill totals from the 2024 season
• Both
Kate Perryman and Thibodeau have recorded 100+ kills this season.
• Perryman has exceeded 100 kills in a single season for the first time in her career.
REACHING THE SUMMIT
• Denver ranks in the top half in the Summit League in nine different statistical categories: opponent digs, opponent service aces, service aces, kills, opponent kills, assists, opponent assists, hitting percentage and opponent hitting percentage.
•The Pioneers lead the League in opponent digs (11.26 digs/set).
•Denver's 0.245 hitting percentage is good for second in the conference and the highest under third year head coach
Megan Pendergast.
MO IN THE MIDDLE
•
Izabela Molina broke the single game hitting percentage record, hitting .900 with 9 kills on 10 attempts on Nov. 1 vs. North Dakota.
• Molina leads the conference with a .396 hitting percentage and averages 0.89 blocks/set.
UNIVERSITY OF DENVER ACCEPTS WCC INVITE FOR 2026-27
•On October 31, the University of Denver announced it has accepted an invitation to join the West Coast Conference in nine sports, beginning in the 2026-27 season.
•Denver will join the West Coast Conference in men's and women's basketball, men's and women's golf, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's tennis and women's volleyball.
•The move provides Denver with a significant enhancement to the overall reputation of the university and brand association, allying DU with highly regarded, mostly private institutions with stronger academic ranking and profiles that will further strengthen the university's position in the western United States.
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