SEMO volleyball splits weekend series with Tennessee Tech

The SEMO women’s volleyball team split a weekend series with the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles with a 3-2 win on Friday and a 3-1 loss on Saturday. This result puts the Redhawks at 10-2 in the Ohio Valley Conference, good enough to remain in first place by one game ahead of Lindenwood.

After winning the first set on Friday, the Redhawks dropped two in a row but fought back and won the final two sets to take the match. SEMO sophomore Lucy Arndt led the way with 14 kills while fellow sophomore Nina Schurberth anchored the defense with 27 digs.

Saturday was a similar story. The Redhawks were down 2-0 and managed to win set three, but this time, the Golden Eagles managed to hold on in set four to win the match.

Redhawks head coach Julie Yankus said Tennessee Tech is a good team who always plays hard in what both teams consider a rivalry matchup.

“I think they[Tennessee Tech] played with a lot of heart and determination. We were swinging hard at balls and they were still finding ways to dig stuff up. I think things we learned were how resilient we can be in that five-set win last night, and we just learned that we got to find ways to play a little better defense,” Yankus said. “We gotta learn some things from this weekend. Nobody's undefeated in the conference and we're still at the top, we just got to make sure we just keep getting better every day.”

SEMO has had three conference matches reach the fifth set with the Redhawks showing the resilience to come out on top in all three instances. Yankus said her team’s ability to survive those five-set matches says a lot about the fight they have in them.

“We come out ready to go, knowing that it's never over. We had to reverse sweep a team earlier this week in Little Rock,” Yankus said. “I think we remembered that and I thought we put it all on the floor and fought for our home court and our seniors, especially on senior day.”

The Redhawks have a road trip for two series against UT Martin and Lindenwood before returning to Houck Field House for the final series of the regular season against SIUE on November 19-20.