Southeastern Cruises Past Rival ECU

DURANT, Okla. – Southeastern got big matches out of Emily Gentle and Kelsey Zerkel and cruised to a 3-1 victory over rival East Central on Tuesday night in Bloomer Sullivan Gymnasium.
 
The win lifts the Savage Storm to 15-11 overall and 8-3 in Great American Conference play heading into its final non-conference match of the season on Wednesday night at 6 p.m. in Bloomer Sullivan Gymnasium.
 
Gentle paced all attackers in the match with 17 kills while hitting .400 for the match, while Julia Benford added 11 kills and Ariel Sanders chipped in nine.
 
Alissa Benson turned in 33 assists to pace the offense with 33 assists while Madelynne Cera added nine.
 
Zerkel turend in her second 30-plus dig outing of the year, matching her career high set back in September with 31 digs, including a massive 11 dig first set performance.  Gentle completed the double-double with 11 digs, while Courtney Miller and Cherlene Nerio each added 12.
 
Benford and Sanders led the defense at the net with three blocks each.


In the first set the Storm took on the strength of a 10-1 run that opened up a 19-10 lead and holding on for the 25-18 win.
 
The Tigers evened the match with a 25-23 win in the second set, but SE bounced back with a pair of four point runs and a pair of three point runs to eventually pull away for a 25-15 win to mount a 2-1 lead.
 
Southeastern would put the exclamation point on the win in the fourth set, using four runs of four or more and not allowing ECU to score back-to-back points in the set in a 25-8 win to clinch a 3-1 victory.