LAKELAND, Fla.—Southeastern moved to .500 in Sun Conference play with a big win over second-place Ave Maria at home Wednesday night.
The Fire put together its most complete effort of the season in a 3-1 win over the Gyrenes, bouncing back from a first set loss.
Southeastern (9-12, 5-5 SUN) had a season-high 65 kills on offense and posted a .228 hitting percentage as a group against a defense that had held opponents to a hitting percentage of just .108 this season.
"We really focused on what we needed to do better," said coach
Audrey Goldsberry. "We know they are a great team and we needed to pick it up and react to the ball and they definitely did that tonight."
Despite starting the first set with a 5-0 lead, the Fire dropped the set after the Gyrenes (14-4, 6-2 SUN) used an 8-3 lead to take control and came away with a 25-19 win.
Both offenses were clicking in the second with the Fire posting a .350 hitting percentage in the set with 18 kills.
Grace Petty,
Kennedy Jones, and
Sylvia Liszewski had four kills each in the set which had the Fire overcome a 16-13 deficit to win 25-22.
Southeastern led by as many as seven in the third set, taking advantage of three AMU service errors and six attacking errors to take a 25-20 win.
The fourth set is when sophomore
Emilia Harding took over, registering 10 of her career-high 22 kills in the final set. A 20-15 lead disappeared when AMU rattled off six straight points, but Harding responded with a 5-0 run on her own to close out the match.
Harding posted a .444 hitting percentage with just two errors on 45 attempts.
"(Emilia) has really started believing in that competitive spirit and not letting a block slow her down," said Goldsberry.
Jones added 11 kills and seven digs to the winning effort and Petty chipped in nine kills and 20 digs.
On defense,
Holly Kaczmarek led the way with 30 digs and
Baylee Warneke posted six blocks.
Alexandra Postlethwaite had a match-high 34 assists.
The Fire return to action on Saturday when they travel to Florida Memorial.
