Women's Volleyball | 8/19/2017 5:26:00 PM
Box Score 1 |
Box Score 2 MONTGOMERY, Ala.—After starting the season 3-0, a pair of 3-1 defeats in their final games at the Faulkner Invitational saw the Fire fall to 3-3 on the year.
In the early contest of the day, the Fire lost to the University of Mobile (19-25, 25-14, 25-20, 27-25).
Southeastern took the first set by a score of 25-19 due to an impressive offensive stretch. The Fire hit a notable .368 with 15 kills in the opening game. Senior outside hitter,
Kelsey Morton, captained Southeastern's offense by contributing a team-high 11 kills in the match.
Kiana Sawtelle and
Kaity Reed both added eight kills.
In set two, Mobile stormed back with their own offensive attack. The Rams, who recorded at least 12 kills in each set, tallied a match-high 15 kills in the second game, while registering a remarkable .500 hitting percentage. This allowed the Rams to even the match at one set apiece.
Southeastern did all they could defensively to stunt Mobile's powerful attack for the rest of the contest.
Keniah Rivera Santiago, the transfer from North Carolina A&T, had a team-high 22 digs, while Sawtelle and Reed added 12 digs and 11 digs, respectively.
The Fire recorded more total blocks than the Rams, behind freshman
Emily Boehlein's six assisted blocks, and narrowly out-hit their competition in the third and fourth sets, but couldn't overcome the momentum Mobile had gained, dropping those games by slender margins.
Led by the trio of Mirella Gatterdam, Hannah Wentland, and Alex Karcher, who all supplied at least 11 kills for the Rams, Mobile was able to close out the match in the fourth set by a score of 27-25. Annie Hudson assisted on a match-high 42 kills.
In their fourth game in two days, Southeastern was defeated by Reinhardt University (25-17, 25-21, 25-27, 25-15).
The Eagles started the match by taking each of the first two sets as a result of their offense. Reinhardt registered .267 and .270 hitting percentages in the games, while killing a minimum of 13 balls in every set.
Four Reinhardt players killed at least eight of their attack attempts. Tessa Colden, who transferred to Reinhardt from Sun Conference rival Webber International, led the Eagles with 19 kills on 48 attempts. Setter Erinn Marroquin assisted on a total of 39 kills in the match.
After tallying 15 kills in the third set on a .231 hitting percentage, both match-highs for the Fire, Southeastern took the third set by the slimmest margin of victory 27-25, putting them within striking distance of tying the match.
However, errors doomed Southeastern's comeback attempt in the fourth set. The Fire committed ten of their 24 errors in the final frame, allowing Reinhardt to win the set in commanding fashion 25-15 and the match by a score of 3-1.
Morton, who recorded 13 kills for the Fire, was the only Southeastern player with double-digit kills. Likewise, Rivera Santiago notched 19 digs, which was the sole double-digit dig stat for the Fire. The majority of the setting responsibilities fell on freshman
Courtney Krause, who picked up 29 assists in the game.
Southeastern will head to the Bryan Bash for their third tournament of the season as they take on Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee. The match is scheduled for August 25
th at 10am.
