FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (September 2, 2026) - The Northern Arizona women's volleyball team will head to Brookings, S.D., for the SDSU Invitational, hosted by South Dakota State. On Friday, Sept. 4, the Lumberjacks will face Bradley at 8 a.m. MST and South Dakota State at 5 p.m. MST. Live streaming of the match against SDSU will be available to watch on Midco Sports 2 and Midco Sports Plus. NAU will play Western Illinois on Saturday, Sept. 5 at 8:30 a.m. MST. Live stats will be available for all three games.
NAU is coming off its season opener, the Ole Miss Invitational, where it faced Loyola Marymount, Ole Miss and Southeastern Louisiana. The Lumberjacks fell 0-3 to the LMU Lions (22-25, 22-25, 18-25) and 1-3 to the Ole Miss Rebels (25-23, 16-25, 22-25, 22-25). NAU earned its first win of the season in its third match against Southeastern Louisiana, winning 3-1 (25-17, 25-17, 23-25, 25-21).
Redshirt junior Gigi Greenlee was named to the All-Tournament Team following her performance over the weekend. The middle blocker recorded 32 kills and a .443 hitting percentage, including a .750 hitting percentage in the opener against LMU. She also recorded 13 total blocks across the weekend and scored 38.5 points.
As a team, the Lumberjacks have recorded 142 kills, averaging 12.9 kills per set while hitting .218. Hanah Stoddard leads the team with 43 kills, bringing her career total to 1,112. NAU has tallied 17 aces, averaging 1.5 per set, with Quincey Coyle leading the team with five. Coyle also has 28 kills and 38 digs.
At setter, Ella Hosfeld has recorded 78 assists thus far, while Taryn Davis has 40. NAU has tallied 167 digs, averaging 15.2 per set. Libero Lilly Holmes leads the team with 51 digs and recorded a career-high 21 digs in the most recent match against SLU. NAU has 22 total blocks, with Greenlee leading the team with 13. Coyle follows with seven, while Stoddard and Lauren Edlund have each recorded six.
Bradley (2-1, 0-0 Missouri Valley Conference) most recently competed in the Rocket Invitational, coming away with a 3-0 win against Binghamton, a 0-3 loss to host Toledo and a 3-2 win against Oakland. Over the weekend, the Braves tallied 144 kills, averaging 13.1 kills per set.
Middle blocker Chloe Parker was named Athlete of the Week after tallying 24 kills with a .322 attack percentage across three matches at the Rocket Invitational on Aug. 28-29. The sophomore from Green Bay, Wisconsin, totaled 24 kills in nine sets against Binghamton, Toledo and Oakland, helping the Braves go 2-1 in the season's opening tournament. Her 10-kill performance against Toledo was the third of her career.
Parker also led the team in attack percentage among players with at least 10 kills, hitting .322 while committing just five errors on 59 attack attempts. Defensively, she tallied 13 digs and six block assists. The Braves are led by head coach Alicia Williams, who enters her fifth season.
Northern Arizona and Bradley have only met once before in 1983, with NAU falling 0-2.
South Dakota State (1-3, 0-0 Summit League) is coming off back-to-back 20-plus-win seasons for the first time since 2006-07. SDSU was picked to win the Summit League in the preseason poll following a 16-0 conference record in 2025.
SDSU brings eight newcomers to its squad in 2026, including four freshmen, three transfers and Brooklyn Meyer, a two-time All-American honorable mention for the Jackrabbits women's basketball team.
Sylvie Zgonc returns for her fourth year in the yellow and blue. She is a two-time Summit League Player of the Year and is one of two Division I volleyball players chasing a third consecutive conference Player of the Year award. Zgonc picked up the first Summit League Peak Performer honor of the year after recording two 20-plus-kill matches at the Asics Classic.
The Jackrabbits defeated former Big Sky foe Sacramento State 3-2 but fell 0-3 to Pepperdine and 2-3 to Villanova. The Jacks most recently faced No. 1 Nebraska, falling in three sets, 18-25, 20-25, 15-25.
Dan Georgalas enters his seventh season as the head coach at South Dakota State in 2026. Under Georgalas, SDSU has won back-to-back Summit League regular-season titles and made consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances via at-large bids in 2024 and 2025. In 2025, Georgalas repeated as the Summit League Coach of the Year after guiding the Jackrabbits to a perfect 16-0 mark in the conference regular season.
Northern Arizona leads the all-time series 2-0 against South Dakota State, with the Lumberjacks defeating the Jackrabbits 3-0 on the road in Brookings in 2017 and 3-0 at home in Flagstaff in 2019.
Western Illinois (0-3, 0-0 Ohio Valley Conference) enters the 2026 season under new head coach Mari Silva and assistant coach Victoria Becerra. So far, the Leathernecks have competed in the Mizzou Invitational, where they fell 0-3 to Missouri, 1-3 to Towson and 0-3 to fellow Big Sky member Idaho.
WIU was picked to finish eighth in the Ohio Valley Conference preseason poll. The Leathernecks finished 7-24 overall last season, including a 4-14 mark in conference play. They have four seniors, all of whom have been at Western Illinois for all four seasons.
Two Leathernecks, Georgia Haynes and Kennedy Adair, were named to the OVC Watch List to begin the season. The match will mark the first meeting between NAU and WIU in program history.
Northern Arizona will host its annual Lumberjack Classic from Sept. 9-12. The Lumberjacks will welcome Omaha, UC Riverside and Grand Canyon to Flagstaff. The tournament will give fans a first look at the team on its home court, where NAU went unbeaten at the Rolle Activity Center with an 11-0 record last season.
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