Southeast Missouri State volleyball team finishes winless in home invitational

The Southeast Missouri State volleyball team was winless in its season-opening home tournament to finish fourth in the four-team invitational.

The Redhawks lost to Arkansas State and Saint Louis on Friday and Missouri-Kansas City on Saturday in the inaugural Drury Hotels Redhawks Invitational held at Houck Field House.

Southeast's season began with a 25-20, 25-10, 25-16 loss to Arkansas State, which went 3-0 to win the title of the two-day tournament.

The Redhawks never led in the opening set. The Red Wolves took a 3-2 lead in the second set and a 4-3 lead in the third set that they'd never relinquish in the sweep.

Krissa Gearring led the Redhawks with 12 kills and Madalyn Werths added 11. Southeast hit just .198 in the match.

Southeast opened its second match of the tournament against SLU with a 25-20 win but dropped the next three sets 25-19, 25-19, 25-22 to lose the match.

The game was tied at 20 in the first set but the Redhawks rattled off a 5-0 run to win their lone set of the tournament.

SLU never led by more than five in the second set until the Billikens took a 22-17 lead before closing out the game.

Southeast faced a 15-5 deficit in the fourth set but scored seven of the next eight points to cut it to 16-12. SLU answered with a 5-0 spurt following a timeout and the Redhawks were unable to pull closer than five points of the Billikens, who finished the tournament 1-2 for third place.

Gearring led a Southeast offense that hit .119 with 15 kills while sophomore middle blocker Nzingha CLarke had a game-high seven blocks.

In its final match on Saturday Southeast hit .041 and had 25 attack errors. UMKC swept the Redhawks 26-24, 25-15, 25-14 to conclude the tournament.

Southeast led the first set 23-18, but the Kangaroos scored 8 of the final nine points, including the final five to win it.

After UMKC took an 8-3 lead in set No. 2 Southeast never came closer than four points.

The Kangaroos tied it at 9-9 and Southeast never led again. UMKC went on a 9-1 run to push its lead to seven. The Redhawks cut it to 17-12 before the Kangaroos closed with a 8-2 spurt.

UMKC was 2-1 on the weekend to finish second.

Southeast's Clarke had 12 kills and two blocks in the match and was the Redhawks only representative on the eight-player all-tournament team.

Arkansas State's Drew Jones was the tournament MVP. ASU's Markie Schaedig and Darby Graff, UMKC's Sydney Crimmins and Taryn Miller and SLU's Meredith Boe were also selected to the team.

The Redhawks travel to Boiling Springs, North Carolina for the Gardner-Webb tournament Sept. 4 and 5.

Soccer shuts out Evansville

The Southeast soccer team needed just one goal in its shutout win against Evansville on Friday night at Houck Stadium.

Junior Angie Mann, a transfer from Central Michigan, scored the lone goal in the 15th minute of the game and the Redhawks held on for a 1-0 victory.

Mann scored her second goal of the season on a pass from Paige Luehmann 14 minutes, 39 seconds into the game.

It was one of six first-half shots for the Redhawks.

The Purple Aces had two shots and none on goal in the first half, but outshot the Redhawks 13-2 over the final 45 minutes and forced Southeast sophomore goalie Kindra Lierz to make three saves.

"We felt very confident in the first half. Although they were a good team, I feel we were more controlling of the play," Southeast coach Heather Nelson said in a press release. "We expected them to come out much stronger in the second half with a response, which they did, and they forced us to grind out the last 45 minutes."

Lierz earned her second shutout of the season as Southeast improved to 2-0-1. Evansville dropped to 0-3.

The Redhawks host Northern Colorado at 1 p.m. Sunday for Family Fun Day at Houck. There will be free putt putt golf in the east end zone parking lot and Andy's Frozen Custard for the first 250 fans.