SEMO volleyball opens conference play with a win

The SEMO women’s volleyball team opened up Ohio Valley Conference play with a 2-0 series win against the Morehead State Eagles over the weekend. The Redhawks took down the Eagles 3-1 on Friday night before sweeping Morehead 3-0 on Saturday afternoon. SEMO head coach Julie Yankus said it is great to start off conference play with a win, especially against a team like Morehead State.

“It’s very exciting, especially against a good team like Morehead. We’ve got a long history of battling with that team. They've had a lot of success in that program, so to get away with a win is always great,” Yankus said.

During Friday night’s game, Southeast won the first and the final two sets to take home the win in four after coming up just short in set number two. The noise of the crowd seemed to get the Redhawks back into the match after set two and Yankus said the nervous excitement of starting OVC play caused the struggle in that set.

“It’s a great environment, we were excited to be back at home. That first set, I think you can see how it really spurred us to start off so strong, the girls feed off the energy and they love it,” Yankus said. “It was really electric in here tonight, that was a lot of fun. We kind of struggled as a team and on the court, we got a little bit quiet but it was great to see them stick through it and then get really fired up for us to get that come-from-behind victory there in the fourth set.”

On offense for the Redhawks, senior setter Izzy Lukens continued to impress with a team-leading 42 assists while freshman outside hitter Lucy Arndt had a breakout performance with a team-high 20 kills. Defensively, graduate student libero Tara Beilsmith led with 27 digs and senior middle blocker Marisa Guisti along with Arndt each had two blocks.

Arndt gave all the credit to the setters and the defense allowing her to have such a great game and help the team get the victory.

“I couldn't lead this team in kills without my team, without such a great setter and the defense. Everyone played great tonight,” Arndt said.

Game two on Saturday saw the Redhawks take early control of the match on the way to the 3-0 sweep. Lukens and Beilsmith led again in assists and digs, respectively while redshirt senior rightside hitter Kaelyn O’Brien and Arndt led with nine kills each.

The Redhawks will travel to SIUE this weekend for a series against the Cougars before returning to Houck Fieldhouse on Oct. 6-7 to take on the Skyhawks from UT Martin.