HAMMOND, La. – The reigning
, two-time Southland Conference Champion Southeastern Louisiana University volleyball team finished its three-match-in-five-day homestand with a third straight-sets victory, downing the McNeese Cowgirls 3-0 (25-12, 25-20, 25-16) Saturday afternoon at the University Center.
Cicily Hidalgo led all scorers in the match, scoring 14 points for Southeastern (15-4, 7-0 SLC) on a match-high 13 kills with nine digs.
Keira Beverly ended the match with 12.5 points, compiling 10 kills while adding five block assists, tying the high for the match. The other player with five block assists was
India Bennett, who also had a solo block and seven kills for a total of 10.5 points scored.
Kyra McKelvey scored nine points with eight kills and two block assists.
The Lady Lions finished the match hitting .268 as a team with 44 kills on 112 total attacks while committing 14 errors. SLU also scored on a pair of service aces and 12 blocks.
McNeese (7-11, 3-3 SLC) marked the fifth-straight opponent Southeastern has held under a .150 attack percentage as the Cowgirls finished the match at .009 with 25 kills and 24 errors on 111 total attacks. McNeese also had two service aces while scoring on five blocks in the match.
"I think we're getting better each week at managing the court well," said SLU head volleyball coach Jeremy White about his team's defensive efforts. "We're understanding what we want to take away from teams with our block, and then being aggressive behind the block with our overall defensive play. Any time you can do that, and be a very disciplined team on the defensive side of the ball, then you can dictate the pace of a match. We still have to get better at handling off speed and turning that into instant offense, which is something we have prided ourselves on in the past. But overall, I'm really happy with our commitment as a team and as individuals to keeping our defensive focus which I think has been our biggest key to our overall success over my time here."
After some early back-and-forth to start the match, the teams evenly split the first eight points, a kill by
Keira Beverly started a 7-0 Lady Lion run, a run she also ended with a kill to put Southeastern up 11-4. Beverly scored 4.5 of her points during that run, contributing on six of the points scored during it with three kills and three block assists.
The two sides evenly split the next four rallies to put SLU up 13-6, but a kill by
Kyra McKelvey started the Lady Lions' second 7-0 run of the set. This run included three kills by Bennett and three attack errors by the Cowgirls. A McNeese attack error provided the final point of the run, giving Southeastern a 20-6 lead.
McNeese scored on six of the next eight rallies to cut the SLU lead down to 22-12, but a kill by Bennett stopped that and sent the Lady Lions on the final run. The kill by Bennett was followed by a kill by Hidalgo to put Southeastern on set point, and then Beverly and
Alexis Logarbo teamed up to block back a Cowgirl attack to give SLU the set victory by a 25-12 score, going up 1-0 in the match.
Southeastern opened an early 4-2 lead on McNeese to open the second set, but it would take several rallies for either team to start to open an advantage. It would be the Lady Lions who opened the gap as, leading 10-9, a Beverly kill kicked off a 5-3 SLU push with a kill by McKelvey giving the Lady Lions a 15-11 lead.
McNeese answered with three-straight to make it a one-point set again at 15-14, only to see a kill by
Anne Brauckmiller kick off a 4-1 SLU push to take a 19-15 lead as
Ashley Richardson's serve hit the floor for an ace.
The Cowgirls had another response, scoring four of the next five to get within one point again at 20-19. The teams traded the next two points to make it 21-20 SLU, but then a kill by Hidalgo started the final run the Lady Lions needed to take the tightly contested set. A McNeese attack missed the court, and then another Hidalgo kill put the Lady Lions on set point. McKelvey finished it off with another kill of her own to end the 4-0 run and give Southeastern a 25-20 set win and a 2-0 match lead.
Set three also started tightly contested with neither team leading by more than a point until Southeastern strung a pair of points together to take a 6-4 advantage on a kill by Hidalgo and a McNeese ball handling error.
SLU started to open a bit of a gap as, leading 8-7, Bennett teamed up with
Lily Morgan to push back a McNeese attack, kicking off a run of four-straight Lady Lion points. That block was followed by a service ace by Morgan, a Cowgirl attack error, and another block that included Bennett, this time teaming up with Logarbo, to give Southeastern a 12-7 lead.
Leading 15-11, the Lady Lions got the run that fully opened the score. A McNeese attack went out of play, starting the 9-3 Southeastern run to get onto match point following a Hidalgo kill. Three rallies later, Richardson sent her pass to the left side where Hidalgo was waiting, putting down the kill for the 25-16 set score, completing the sweep.
With the win, Southeastern extends its win streak out to 15-straight matches. SLU has also won 24-straight in Southland Conference competition while having won 27-straight matches against SLC foes, no matter if the match was considered an in-conference or out-of-conference match.
After winning all nine sets played in the three-match-in-five-day homestand, the Lady Lions now head out of town for four-straight matches, starting on Thursday in Beaumont, Texas to battle Lamar. Opening serve of Thursday's match against the Cardinals (10-8, 2-4 SLC) is set for 6:30 p.m. at McDonald Gymnasium. Southeastern will be looking to finish the season sweep of Lamar after SLU knocked off the Cardinals in straight-sets in the University Center last month. The match is currently not expected to be televised, but live stats will be available through the host institution.
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.
