Southeast Missouri State soccer team advances to OVC final

The Southeast Missouri State soccer team will play for its first Ohio Valley Conference tournament title since 2007 after defeating Tennessee Tech in a semifinal on Friday in Murray, Kentucky.

The sixth-seeded Redhawks advanced to the championship game with a 2-0 win vs. No. 2 Tennessee Tech.

"It feels fantastic to get this win," Southeast coach Heather Nelson said in a press release. "It was a total team effort as we used every player in our lineup. Our defense deserves a lot of credit for shutting out the second place team in our league. To score two goals against a quality Tennessee Tech defense is also a testament to how well we came out and played today."

Junior midfielder Jennifer Antonacci stole the ball from a TTU defender and sent a shot from the edge of the 18-yard box past freshman goalkeeper and OVC Defensive Player of the Year Kari Naerdemann to put Southeast up 1-0 in the ninth minute.

Junior forward Natasha Minor gave the Redhawks a two-goal lead with a shot that went over a leaping Naerdemann and into the back of the net with 9:37 remaining.

Southeast had 11 shots, five on goal, in the win while TTU had seven shots and four were on goal.

Redhawks sophomore goalie Kindra Lierz made four saves in the shutout.

"I thought coming into this game, it was a matchup of the best keepers in the league," Nelson said. "They were both very dominant on both ends of the field. I couldn't be more proud of how Kindra played with confidence today."

Southeast will face top-seeded Murray State in the tournament final at 1 p.m. Sunday in Murray, Kentucky.

The Racers, who went 10-0 in conference to win the regular-season title, defeated No. 5 Morehead State 2-1 in the other semifinal.

OVC Offensive Player of the Year Harriet Withers scored both goals for MSU, including the game-winner with 31 seconds remaining.

Southeast lost to the Racers 4-1 on Oct. 4 and has not lost a game since.

The Redhawks' last trip to the tournament championship game in 2007 resulted in a shootout win over Samford.

Volleyball

Southeast split a pair of road games, knocking off Austin Peay in five sets Friday and falling to OVC-leading Murray State in straight sets Saturday.

Austin Peay knocked off the Redhawks in five sets to pick up its second conference win of the season.

Southeast lost the first and second sets 26-24 before evening the match in commanding fashion.

The Redhawks took Set 3 25-9 and Set 4 25-11 to force the decisive fifth set. They hit .583 and .457, respectively, as a team in those two sets.

The final set was tied 14 times and neither team led by more than three.

APSU went up 14-11 for match point, but Southeast answered with three straight points on kills by Madalyn Werths and Marie Less and a Haley Roberts service ace to tie it.

The lead changed five more times after that. Southeast went up 21-20 before the Govs closed out the set with three points to win it 23-21 and take the match.

Krissa Gearring had 17 kills and 15 digs and Less had a season-high 24 digs and 10 kills for Southeast.

Nzingha Clarke had 17 kills and six blocks, Werths recorded 16 kills and four blocks and Katarina Rotta finished with 46 assists.

The Racers defeated the Redhawks 25-18, 25-23, 25-17 in Saturday's match.

Clarke and Gearring each finished with six kills for Southeast while Werths and Madeline Grimm each had five. Clarke added five blocks while Less had 10 digs.

Southeast heads to UT Martin on Tuesday before closing out the regular season at home against Jacksonville State on Saturday.