Southeast volleyball defends home court, reaches conference semis over Tennessee State

Southeast's Ramiri Gardner (right) gets in front of the ball during a Sunday, November 24, 2024 Ohio Valley Conference quarterfinal game between the Southeast Missouri State Redhawks and the Tennessee State Tigers at Houck Field House in Cape Girardeau, Mo. Southeast Missouri defeated Tennessee State, 3-1.

Cole Lee ~ clee@semoball.com

Playing host to the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament field, Southeast volleyball rebounded from a second-set loss to take a 3-1 victory over Tennessee State in the quarterfinals to move one step closer to a conference championship.

Against a Tigers team that it’d seen two times before Sunday night, the Redhawks looked shaky initially after a few momentum swings allowed Tennessee State to jump back into the fold, but it was how Southeast responded that sealed the victory.

The defeat drops Tennessee State to 10-22 for the season, ending its run for the Ohio Valley Conference title in the quarterfinals following a 6-12 finish in the conference regular season, good for the No. 8 seed going into the tourney after winning four of its final six conference games.

The victory improved Southeast’s season record to 19-12 overall, marking the first victory on the road to a conference title and a tournament berth over the eighth-seeded Tigers after finishing the regular season with the top seed at 15-3 in the Ohio Valley Conference.

“They've got a lot of experience, so we just had to remind them that we've got to treat it like any other match of the season,” Redhawks coach Julie Yankus said.

“Don't play frantic, just play with urgency.”

That urgency delivered Southeast a spot in the conference semifinals, the sixth consecutive season in which the Redhawks have placed reached that stage.

That includes Ohio Valley Conference championships in both 2019 and 2021, with the 2021 tournament also being hosted at Houck Field House after the Redhawks finished atop the regular season standings.

With a 5 p.m. Monday matchup with either No. 4 or No. 5, the top-seeded Redhawks anxiously await the results of Sunday night’s finale between Morehead State and Western Illinois.

Southeast enters having only faced the former twice of those two, winning both matches with 3-1 and 3-2 victories respectively at Morehead State back in October.

“We’ve just gotta focus on our side of things,” Yankus said.

“Whichever team we play tomorrow night, it's gonna be a battle through and through.”

Tennessee State opened the first set hot, but the Redhawks rallied off eight consecutive points to take a commanding 14-9 lead after trailing by three just a few minutes prior.

A 6-2 run got the Tigers back into the mix, but a massive kill from Lucy Arndt got Southeast to set point and Abby Johnson finished it off to claim the first set for the hosts at 25-21.

Likewise, the second set saw both sides keep it close, with the Tigers getting a kill from Storm White so loud that the ball nearly leaped out of the gym, with Tennessee State thriving off momentum in the early goings to build a 12-7 lead.

A Southeast timeout helped stall some of that momentum, ending a long run with another big kill from Johnson on the right end.

But Tennessee State had a response of its own, fending off a rally back from Southeast with a Maygan Miller-Garcia rejection at the net front to force Yankus to issue a second timeout, and when they came back, Miller-Garcia and White combined for yet another huge block to make that lead 8.

The Redhawks fought to end that run, but they had no such luck as an Arndt service error sealed a 25-16 second-set victory for the Tigers, their second in three matches against Southeast.

Starting the third in an early hole, Southeast fought back from a 10-7 deficit to take the 11-10 lead and force coach Donika Sutton of the Tigers to take a timeout as the Redhawks built up momentum.

Just when Tennessee State found its way back into the tie, Arndt began to smack the skin off the volleyball, with one kill echoing up off a deflection and into the second level as Houck Field House got jumping.

Johnson got another loud block to put the Redhawks up 3 points, and they just kept adding on as Sutton took another timeout, much to the delight of the crowd as the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” took over the arena.

Nina Schuberth’s pancake save kept the rally alive for Southeast, building up a 24-19 lead to put the Tigers into a set-point situation, but they weren’t done yet as they rolled off three straight to force a Yankus timeout with a 24-22 third-set lead.

A long video review confirmed that a Southeast kill attempt just barely went out, confirming the initial ruling, but Arndt finished the set with a bang off a Johnson assist to claim a 25-23 win in the third set and place Southeast a set away from the conference semifinals.

An early fourth-set kill from Johnson marked the 1,000th of her career, causing a brief stoppage of the game as some close ones waved a banner in the moment’s honor.

Less than a minute later, Johnson got her 1,001st kill to force a longer stoppage as Sutton’s Tigers dropped into an 8-3 hole in need of a set victory to keep their season alive.

It paid off, as Yankus found herself using a timeout of her own after Tennessee State rallied back into a 9-8 Southeast lead.

But the Redhawks held on, and with an already large lead, Ramiri Gardner climbed the ladder for a huge block that helped Southeast to a 23-17 lead before eventually sealing a 25-19 victory in the fourth set and a 3-1 conference quarterfinal victory at home.

Lucy Arndt led the Redhawks with 19 kills in the victory, with Abby Johnson and Ramiri Gardner both contributing 10 kills behind her.

Jayla Holcombe’s 16 kills led Tennessee State, while Celestial Miller and Storm White both finished in double digits with 12 and 11 respectively.

Facilitating the offense, Megan Holder led the Redhawks far and away with 27 assists in the victory while Kennedey Johnson’s 19 finished as the only other Southeast performer in double digits.

Sagaia Reilly finished with a game-high 33 assists in the loss, becoming the only Tiger to record double-digit assists in a losing effort.

Arndt also added two aces, plus 16 digs trailing just libero Nina Schuberth on the defensive end. Alina Lester led Southeast in blocks with 5, while Arndt, Johnson and Gardner added 3 each.

White also added 6 blocks, while Maygan Miller-Garcia contributed 4 behind her to lead the net-front defense while Hadley Pride’s 23 digs held the backcourt down.