Southeastern Stuns St. Thomas on Senior Day

LAKELAND, Fla.- The top team in the Sun Conference, St. Thomas University (17-5, 12-2 SUN), was on a 13-game win streak and had only dropped two SUN contests all regular season. The Southeastern University Fire (13-12, 9-5 SUN) snapped that streak and handed the Bobcats a 3-2 loss on senior day.
 
A .382 attack percentage by the Fire in set one and a .147 attack percentage from their competitors aided in a 25-19 first set victory for the Fire. The scales tipped in the Fire's favor after Grace Petty recorded four consecutive kills to erase a 12-9 deficit and give the home team their first lead of the set. Senior Baylee Warneke had her strongest outing of the season as she strung together five kills in the first set to aid the Fire in the 25-19 win.
 
The second and third sets for the Fire saw a drastic decline in offensive production as they would record 13 errors within the two sets to give the Bobcats the 25-23 and 25-15 wins and 2-1 advantage.
 
Refusing to roll over, the Fire responded in a big way in set four, hitting .417 with 12 total kills for the lopsided 25-10 win. Emilia Harding and Warneke were a force at the net to open the new set with three consecutive blocks to push the Fire to a 5-0 lead to open the set. Harding would conclude the set with three-consecutive kills as the Fire would take advantage of 10 attack errors to force the tiebreaker set.
 
With the match tied at two, the Fire continued to press the gas as they posted an attack percentage of .429 to take the match from the top team in the Sun Conference, recording nine kills and no errors. The match concluded with three consecutive Fire points including another kill and block by Warneke.
 
Harding continued to impress as she posted a team-high 16 kills and a .484 attack percentage. Warneke concluded senior day with season highs in kills with 12 and blocks with six while hitting .417.
 
Head coach Audrey Goldsberry stated," Baylee has stepped up for us all year bust especially today. She went in going all out and playing as if it were her last game and I think she was able to execute everything she wanted to."
 
The Fire are now 7-1 in their last eight contests. "This year didn't start how we wanted", stated Goldsberry, "but this team has stepped up and bought in at the right time. This is the time to be peaking so we're just going to continue to train hard going into Tuesday."
 
Holly Kazcmarek would record 23 digs while Aly Postlethwaite assisted on 30 kills. Collectively, the Fire posted 12 blocks through the five sets.
 
The Fire will next head into the Sun Conference Tournament as they host the quarterfinal matchup against Florida Memorial on Tuesday at 7 p.m.