CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Southland Conference regular season champion and #1-seed Southeastern Louisiana University volleyball team will have the chance to successfully defend its SLC Tournament Championship from a season ago, locking in its spot in the Finals by eliminating the #4-seed Houston Christian 3-1 (25-17, 25-18, 18-25, 25-19) in the semifinal round Saturday afternoon at the Dugan Wellness Center on the campus of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
After the Huskies (19-13) got a service ace to start the match,
Rachel Hartmann scored a kill and then blocked a HCU attack to give Southeastern (27-4) the lead and the Lady Lions would not trail for the remainder of the set. SLU tried to pull away, going on a 3-0 run which included kills by
Cicily Hidalgo and
Jacqueline Arrington to make it 6-3. However, the Huskies scored on three of the next four to get it back down to a one-point SLU advantage at 7-6. But that's when the Lady Lions blew the set open as another Arrington kill kicked off a 12-3 Southeastern run with a kill by Hartmann giving SLU a 19-9 lead. HCU did not make it easy for SLU to claim the first set, going on an 8-4 run to cut the deficit down to 23-17, but after a Southeastern timeout, the Lady Lions went to
Kailin Newsome for back-to-back kills to end the set at 25-17 and put SLU up 1-0 in the match.
Much like the first set, the Huskies scored the opening point of the second set on a kill, but any HCU momentum was quickly thwarted as a service error kicked off an 8-0 Lady Lion run, capped by a Husky attack error which made it 8-1 Southeastern. After Houston Christian made it 9-3, another Arrington kill started a 5-1 Lady Lion spurt as another HCU attack error put SLU up double-digits at 14-4. The Huskies scored four of the next five to cut the Lady Lion lead down to 15-8, but a kill by
Hannah Brewer ended that and starting a three-point push by Southeastern with Newsome getting a kill and Brewer adding a block to get the lead back to 10 points at 18-8. HCU made one last push to get back in the match, scoring the next five points to cut the lead down to 18-13. The advantage stayed around five points until a HCU service error began another 3-0 push by SLU with kills by Hartmann and Hidalgo putting Southeastern on set point. Three rallies later, Hidalgo ended the set with a kill, giving the Lady Lions a 25-18 set victory and a 2-0 lead in the match.
With their season now on the line, the Huskies again took the early advantage, jumping out to a 4-1 lead. However, SLU got a kill from Hartmann, an ace by Brewer, and a block by Hidalgo evened thing back up. HCU had another 4-1 run to make it 8-5 before kills by Hidalgo and Newsome and a Husky attack error leveled the score again at 8-8. But in this set, HCU had all the big runs, going on a 5-1 run to make it 13-9 before SLU got two-straight to make it 13-11. Houston Christian then scored five-straight points to open the score up at 18-11. The Lady Lions scored five of the next six to get that deficit down to three points at 19-16 on an Arrington block. However, HCU would need eight rallies to get the last six points needed to force a fourth set as a SLU attack error on set point gave the Huskies a 25-18 set win, cutting Southeastern's lead in the match to 2-1.
In the fourth set, it was the Lady Lions who looked to try to get things under their control early, jumping out to a 5-2 lead on a kill by Hidalgo. HCU cut that down to one point at 6-5 before a kill by Arrington, Newsome, and Hartmann extended the lead back out to 9-5. Five rallies later, SLU pushed that advantage out to five points as
Gracie Duplechein got a serve to fall in for an ace and a 12-7 Lady Lion lead. The Huskies battled back, scoring seven of the next nine points to tie the set back up at 14-14. With the match tied at 15-15, a Hartmann kill started the final big push for Southeastern to get the win as the Lady Lions went on an 8-2 run to open a 23-18 lead as Brewer blocked back an attack for a SLU point. Four rallies later, Newsome slammed down a kill on match point to secure a 25-19 set win and a spot in the SLC Tournament Finals.
"Today was a great win against a very tough team," said SLU head volleyball coach Jeremy White. "I'm proud of our kids for making the adjustments necessary to rally back and take that fourth set. Our athletes are excited to be back in the championship and I know they're motivated to bring the Southland trophy back to Hammond, America for a second time."
Hidalgo and Newsome shared match-high honors in kills with both getting 18 in the match. Hidalgo hit .368 in the match and collected her 1,000
th career kill in the process. She got her seventh double-double of the season by adding 15 digs while getting two assists, two solo blocks and an assisted block. Newsome got her 15
th double-double of the season as she collected 12 digs while also getting four assists and a service ace. Hartmann got her eighth double-double of the season with 11 kills and 14 digs while also contributing an assist, a service ace, a solo block, and two assisted blocks. Duplechein had a match-high 44 assists to go with four kills, six digs, two service aces, and a block assist.
Ansley Tullis led the team with 16 digs.
Southeastern finished the match hitting .226 as a team, getting 61 kills and 26 errors on 155 total attacks. The Lady Lions dished out five service aces and blocked back 10 HCU attacks for points. The SLU defense held Houston Christian to 44 kills and 22 error on 149 total attacks for a .148 attack percentage. The Huskies also had five serve aces and blocked back 11 attacks.
The Lady Lions now await the winner of the other semifinal match between the #2-seed and host Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (21-9) and the #3-seed McNeese (16-16). Opening serve of Sunday's SLC Championship Match, with the winner being named conference champion and earning an automatic berth into the NCAA National Championship Tournament, is set for 2:00 p.m. at the Dugan Wellness Center. The match will be live streamed on ESPN+ with live stats also available through the Southland Conference.
DIGGIN' IT CLUB / S CLUB
Fans interested in becoming active supporters of the Southeastern volleyball program are encouraged to join the Diggin' It Club. Lion volleyball alums are encouraged to join the exclusive S Club, which is restricted to Southeastern athletic letter winners.
All membership fees and donations to both the Diggin' It Club and S Club (volleyball) are available for the exclusive use of the Southeastern volleyball program. Membership information is available by contacting the Lion Athletics Association at
laa@southeastern.edu or (985) 549-5091 or visiting
www.LionUp.com.
SOCIAL MEDIA
For more information on Lady Lions Volleyball, follow @LionUpVB or @JWhiteSLU on Twitter, @LionUpVB on Instagram, like /SLUathletics on Facebook and subscribe to the SLUathletics YouTube channel.
