SE Opens GAC Tourney Thursday

Women's Volleyball | 11/18/2015 2:43:00 PM

DURANT, Okla. – For the fifth-straight season Southeastern volleyball has earned a trip to the Great America Conference tournament presented by Subway where it will open the tournament at 5 p.m. on Nov. 19 against Arkansas Tech at Bank of the Ozarks Arena in Hot Springs, Ark.
 
The Savage Storm enter as the No. 8 seed following a 7-22 record with a 5-11 conference season which ended with a 3-0 win over rival East Central.
 
SE comes into the postseason averaging 11.9 kills per set as a team and have been led on offense by Abby Jameson who is sixth in the GAC with 3.48 kills per set on the season in her freshman year.
 
She is joined by Julia Benford atop the Storm list of offensive leaders who came on strong in the final weeks of the season and finished with 2.93 kills per set while hitting .312 for the year, ranking 10^th in kills and fifth in hitting percentage in the conference.  Arianna Baker is the third player averaging more than two kills per set with a mark of 2.01 while hitting .295 this season which is good for eighth in the GAC.
 
Alissa Benson is averaging 9.29 assists per set which ranks her sixth in the league, while also averaging 2.22 digs per set and totaling 49 blocks.
 
Charlene Nerio leads the defense with 4.41 digs per set which ranks sixth in the GAC heading into the tournament, while Benford and Baker are leading the way at the net with 73 and 64 blocks, respectively.
 
The Storm faced ATU just once on the season, dropping a tight 3-1 matchup in which the Storm actually outscored the Golden Suns by a point.
 
SE won the opening set of that match by a 25-18 margin, but then saw ATU pick up back-to-back 25-23 wins in the next two sets before falling in the fourth set 28-26.
 
Jameson turned in 18 kills in that match, while Benford added 12.
 
Benson dished out 43 assists while defensively Nerio added 16 digs and Jameson and Baker added three blocks each.
 
The winner between SE and ATU will advance to the semi-finals on Nov. 20 at 6 pm. to face the winner of the No. 4 versus No. 5 seed contest between Southern Arkansas and Harding.
 
A win then would advance them to the finals slated for 2 p.m. on Nov. 21.
 
The Storm picked up its first-ever postseason win last season when they downed Southern Arkansas 3-0 before falling to Southern Nazarene in the semifinals.