MIAMI GARDENS, Fla.—Southeastern struggled offensively in its 3-0 season-opening loss to defending Sun Conference Tournament Champion Florida Memorial Saturday afternoon.
The Fire hit just .105 as a team with a total of 23 kills. Florida Memorial racked up 40 kills and got 11 service aces from its lineup.
The Lions won six straight rallies early in the first set to take an 8-2 advantage, but the Fire was able to whittle the deficit down to three tanks to the play of
Emily Boehlein and
Morgan Swanger. Swanger had two of her six kills in the match during the run, and finished the game with a .235 hitting percentage. Boehlein added a team-best eight kills, and was part of a team-high four blocks. The senior also added nine digs.
FMU used another run of five straight points to double up the Fire 18-9, and went on to win the set, 25-15.
Southeastern had a 3-1 lead in the second set on a kill by
Maggie Seagren, an FMU attack error, and a block by Boehlein and
Julia Alves. Later in the set, another Seagren kill put the Fire up 11-10, but the Lions used another 5-0 run to take control, and went on to win 25-15.
Seagren finished with seven kills, a .250 attack percentage, and 12 digs.
A 7-1 run by the Lions gave them a 10-6 advantage in the third. Trailing by eight and facing match point, the Fire won three straight points before ultimately falling 25-19.
Defensively,
Fabianne Besosa had a team-high 13 digs in her SEU debut. Alves assisted on three blocks in her first match with the Fire.
Emily Eurice registered 13 assists.
Southeastern returns to action on Wednesday with another Sun Conference match at Webber International.
