Lady Suns win 25th match of season on Senior Night

Southeastern’s Amanda Rosendale (left) and Alexis Slater go up to block a ball hit into the top of the net during last week’s match with Illini West. Taylor Gaines (#19) covers on the play. Southeastern won in two sets to take second place in the West Central Conference.

Southeastern moved to 25-9 for the regular season with a 25-22, 25-18 win over the Illini West Chargers on Senior Night at Augusta.

The win gave Southeastern a 3-1 record within the West Central Conference North Division, good for second place behind 4-0 West Prairie. West Prairie defeated West Hancock in their final division match.

Illini West (17-18) finishes 0-4 within the division.

The match was even throughout. There were three ties in the match, but Southeastern never trailed in the match. Illini West stayed close with more intensity on defense, including their blocking, than they have showed for most of the season.

“It is a loss, but I could not be more pleased with how we played,” said Illini West coach Betsy Wujek. “We showed some consistency tonight. That is a really outstanding team. We played well.

“We touched a lot of balls on our block. The back row was able to pick up the majority of those.”

“Their blocking was pretty difficult for us,” said Southeastern coach Tim Kerr. “They have some nice size in the middle, which is where our power is.

“It was a grind-it-out kind of win. We made a few more plays and a few less mistakes than they did.”

Southeastern built a quick four-point lead in game one. The lead was as many as seven points at 18-11 before the Chargers found a way to close the gap. A Lauren McGaughey block closed the score to 21-15. Two Southeastern errors made it 21-17 before an Illini West hitting error gave Southeastern the serve.

Illini West received a side out when the Lady Suns let a ball drop to the floor after it was blocked. They took advantage with two ace serves from Jessica Siverly to make it a 22-21 deficit.

Southeastern called a timeout, and Amanda Rosendale stopped the Southeastern bleeding with a kill. A passing error by the Chargers gave Southeastern game point at 24-21. Illini West scored a kill to force the side out, but Sheena Flesner scored a kill for the Lady Suns to finish game one.

The first half of game two saw Southeastern maintain a small lead until Illini West scored three straight points to tie the game at 6-6 on a kill by McGaughey. The game was tied later at 10-10 after a miscommunication on a pass by Southeastern that allowed the ball to hit the floor. The Chargers did the exact same thing on the next serve, giving the Lady Suns the lead.

The Lady Suns opened up some breathing room behind the serving of Flesner. Two lifts and a bad pass by Illini West made it 16-11. Raina Little scored a kill to force a side out, but Rosendale scored a kill for Southeastern on the next play to retake serve. Taylor Gaines scored three straight points, including an ace serve. Rosendale added another kill to give her team a 20-12 lead.

The Chargers made one more run. Down 22-14, McGaughey scored a kill. She followed that with a block for point A lift closed the score to 22-17. Mallary Owen ended the run with a tip over the net for a point before the match ended on an Illini West hitting error.

Rosendale had seven kills for Southeastern. Kassie Perry had six kills. Owen had 19 assists.

Little had 10 kills for Illini West. Siverly had 12 digs. Kelly Ard had 13 assists. Bali Campbell and McGaughey each had two blocks.

The two teams had one week to prepare for regionals. Southeastern is in Class 1A and travels to Astoria on Thursday, Oct. 29, where they are the No. 2 seed.

“We'll probably play Illini Central who was 22-4 at the seed meeting,” said Kerr. “That's a pretty good No. 3 seed. Hopefully, we can have more success than we did last year.”

Illini West is a Class 2A team. They travel to Rushville/Industry where they play Quincy Notre Dame.

“(The week) gives us some time to work on things like our communication, serve receive and ball control,” said Wujek. “I also want to work on making our serve more aggressive so it is harder to pick up.

“We played QND earlier this year. We're looking forward to the challenge.”