BILLINGS, MT – The SFU Red Leafs volleyball team closed out their regular season with a spectacular performance on Saturday afternoon, earning a 3-1 road win over the Montana State Billings Yellowjackets.
 
Final set scores in the contest were 25-21, 25-15, 19-25, and 25-15.
 
SFU finished the 2022 campaign with an overall record of 13-14, and mark of 10-8 in GNAC play. It's the eighth straight season SFU has finished with a winning record in the conference.
 
A very young squad, SFU's most impressive stretch of the season came over its' final four weeks, as SFU reeled off a 6-2 record over their last eight games. With only one player from the 2022 squad set to graduate, SFU has built the basis to have an impressive core in 2023.
 
On Saturday, the Red Leafs were led offensively by their duo of sophomore outside hitters. Brooke Dexter with 15 kills on a solid 43 percent efficiency rate, while Jocelyn Sherman added 10 kills of her own to go along with four blocks (tying middle blocker Abby Willet for the team lead).
 
The Red Leafs were especially impressive in the second and fourth frames, winning each by a 10-point margin. SFU was hyper-efficient in the former, collectively posting 15 kills to just two attacking errors. Meanwhile, their active defense forced the Yellowjackets to commit five errors to just seven of their own kills in the set.
 
The fourth and eventually game-winning stanza, was perhaps less impressive from a technical standpoint for SFU, but just as dominant from a mental perspective. After the Yellowjackets pulled themselves back into the contest with a 25-19 win in the third frame, SFU could have allowed the match to get away from them.
 
Early on, that appeared to be the case, as MSUB stormed out to a 4-1 lead quickly in the fourth set. However, SFU got kills from Dexter, Sherman, and a pair from Hanna Kolof as part of a 6-2 run of their own from that point out, clawing their way back to a 7-6 lead.
 
The Red Leafs never trailed again, as they ripped off another 7-3 run from that point to open up a 14-9 advantage. SFU led by as many as 11 over the game's final stages, with Dexter eventually flying at the net to deliver the game's final point on a bullet of a kill.
 
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