LAKELAND, Fla.—Two big challenges await the Southeastern University volleyball team this week.
The Fire will travel to play their in-county rival, then will host the first-place team in The Sun Conference.
SEU carries some momentum into this key week, having defeated Johnson & Wales on Saturday in straight sets, posting their best hitting percentage in a conference match this year at .227. The Fire are second in the conference in hitting percentage at .187, led by
Emily Boehlein, who is fifth individually at .277.
On defense, the Fire have two of the top three blockers in seniors
Emily Kalmink and
Taylor Gregory, who average .9 and .8 blocks per set, respectively.
Last year, Southeastern and Warner split their two regular season matches with each team winning on the road. Warner won a 3-0 contest in which two of the first two sets went extra points on October 10
th. Southeastern took a 2-0 lead on October 27
th in Lake Wales, but the host Royals won the next two to force a fifth set. The Fire won the tiebreaker in a wild back-and-forth set, trailing 4-1, then taking a 12-11 lead.
The Royals enter tonight's match with a 4-6 overall record and 1-3 Sun Conference mark. On Saturday, Warner rallied from down two sets to none, to win the third (25-19), fourth (25-23), and fifth (15-12) at Ave Maria. Alexandra Gonzalez had a career-high 25 kills in the match
Warner is currently second behind Southeastern in the league in digs at 17.5 per set, with Savanah Griffin fifth individually at 4.1 per set.
Keiser has won 17 straight heading into their home match with second-place Keiser tonight. During their last 17 matches, the Seahawks have dropped just four sets. KU leads the NAIA in total kills (1229) and assists (1,151). They also have the top two individuals nationally in those two categories in Abbie Seward with 367 kills and Brooklyn VandeHei at 959 assists.
Southeastern won six of the seven sets the two teams played last year, winning 3-0 at Keiser, and 3-1 in Lakeland.
