Summit Play Begins

BROOKINGS — The South Dakota State softball team kicked off Summit League play over the weekend and it was a reset for the Jackrabbits after they struggled towards the end of the non-conference portion of the season.

SDSU started the season strong, winning 12 of its first 16 games. The Jacks then played in the OSU/Tulsa Invitational in Tulsa, Okla., and lost all five games. They then played a doubleheader against No. 5 ranked Nebraska and were swept by the Cornhuskers.

The Jacks then traveled to Colorado and split four games. They would close out the non-conference with a tournament in Arlington, Texas, and a doubleheader at Wichita State. SDSU went 1-6 in that 10-day stretch and went into conference play with a record of 15-19.

SDSU head coach Kristina McSweeney said she hopes her team learned from their losses in the non-conference and can get back to how they were playing in the beginning of the season.

“We had some really good weekends and then some pretty terrible ones,” McSweeney said. “I think the main thing that I got and that our team got from it is learning how to fight through things.

“You know, we traveled, I think it was over 17,000 miles, so we were all over the place. But, you know, we had to learn how to fail to learn how to win, if that makes sense. So, thankfully, we went through those bad weekends back-to-back-to-back because we don’t want to peak in the preseason, of course.”

SDSU won two games in a three-game series with South Dakota this past weekend and the two wins were the first two shutouts of the season for the Jacks.

Senior Madi Mangulis was in the circle for the Jacks in the first game on Friday and it was the first complete-game shutout of her career. She gave up four hits in the win and did not walk a batter.

Junior Akalya Barnard started the second game on Saturday and gave up three hits and walked one batter in a 9-0 victory in six innings.

McSweeney said the thing that stood out the most in the two wins over the weekend was her pitchers not giving up free bases.

“I think that the glaring thing for me is in the two games we won this weekend, I think there was one walk,” McSweeney said. “… We faced 48 hitters, and we only walked one. And that’s the key. We were out of the 2-0 count when we were pitching, and we only walked one, which was significantly different from what we had been doing all year.

“I think a lot of that is pounding the zone and telling them, like, we’re not afraid for you to throw strikes. You know, go ahead and fill it up and don’t be afraid to give up a hit. I don’t care about the hits. I care about the walks.”

SDSU lost two of its best players in the field and at the plate to graduation in catcher Brooke Dumont and second baseman Mia Jarecki. Dumont led the team in home runs and extra base hits last year and was third in batting average.

Meanwhile, Jarecki was the Summit League Player of the Year in 2024 and was an All-Summit League First Team honoree the last three years of her career.

McSweeney said it was hard to replace that much talent at two positions, but she thinks now that the Jacks are over halfway through the season, they’ve figured it out.

“I think Brea Riebel has stepped into that [second base] position and has done incredible for us,” McSweeney said. “She’s hitting somewhere around the .300 area. I think she has stepped into that role and we haven’t lost a beat there. You know, the one we feel the most is Brooke Dumont.

She just did such a good job managing her pitching staff and was so consistent behind the plate in her senior year.

“We’ve had several people behind, you know, playing that position. Allie Boyle, Abby Gentry, Mia Buske, Kendall Daniel. I think ultimately we have figured out that Mia Buske is going to be the one we’re going to go with into the conference play or probably a combination of her and Abby Gentry. So I think that question mark has finally been kind of solidified.”

Riebel is hitting .284 on the season and has six RBIs. Sophomore

Amanda Vacanti leads the Jacks in batting average at .398 and she has 23 RBIs with nine home runs. Barnard is the team-leader in home runs with 11 and RBIs with 28. She is hitting .313, while senior Emma Vike is hitting .338 and has 27 RBIs and seven home runs.

SDSU is third in the Summit League in team batting at .306 and the Jacks are second in runs with 209, only behind Omaha who has 211. They have the most hits in the conference with 307 and are second in home runs with 48. SDSU is tied for the league lead in RBIs with 195 and leads the conference in extra base hits with 115.

McSweeney has been happy with the way her team has been able to produce extra base hits and launch the ball over the fence. However, she thinks the Jacks need to do a better job of being consistent in the clutch.

“I think they’ve been incredible, really, but I think when we’ve needed them the most, they haven’t been,” McSweeney said. “We started off just incredibly hot offensively and then the last three weekends, not counting this weekend in the preseason, it was like our offense kind of disappeared almost.

“This weekend, the first two days, you know, our offense was okay day one, our offense was better day two and then on Sunday, it was like we were back to, yeah, we started off hot, and then we couldn’t get the big hit when we needed it. I can’t not talk about our offense and our extra base hits and home runs so that our doubles numbers and home run numbers are what’s carrying us. So, yeah, it’s exciting to see our offense perform.”

St. Thomas (21-7) and Omaha (20-7) each swept their first conference series. Kansas City (9-17) and North Dakota State (16-13) were each swept in their first series and North Dakota (20-11) has not played a conference game. UND will begin Summit League play this weekend in Brookings.

SDSU made the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back seasons in 2021 and 2022 under Krista Wood. McSweeney was hired after the 2022 season and made it to the Summit League championship game in her first two seasons, but the Jacks went winless in the conference tournament last year.

McSweeney said she wants the Jacks to finish in the top two of the conference in the regular season and then go from there, with the ultimate goal of getting back to the NCAA Tournament. She said it’s going to take a lot of hard work and consistency in the final 19 games of the season if the Jacks want to attain those goals.

“Honestly, it’s going to take our players to understand that you can’t take your foot off the gas,”

McSweeney said. “You’ve got to just keep going and keep going hard. … It’s going to be that. It’s going to be us taking two or three every weekend possible and not giving up a game like we did on Sunday that we should have won.

“Our goal is still to win the summit and go into the conference tournament with a 1-2 seed. And it’s going to take the will of every single one of our players and the buy-in and I mean, the intentionality for us to get there.”