The Southeast Missouri State volleyball team concluded its season on Nov. 20 with a loss to the Murray State Racers in three sets in the first round of the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament.

The Racers went on to defeat both Tennessee Tech and Belmont by match scores of 3-0 in the tournament and were crowned OVC Tournament Champions.

The Redhawks ended the season 11-20 overall and 7-9 in the OVC, which landed them the final seed in the conference tournament.

"I definitely learned a lot this season," coach Julie Yankus said. "We had a lot of young and inexperienced players on the floor and just on the team in general. So we definitely had to be patient this year and learn how to be successful with a lot of young players."

The Redhawks started the season off on a good note by beating American Athletic Conference opponent the Memphis Tigers 3-1 in the Marcia E Hamilton Classic in St. Louis.

It was a season of streaks for the Redhawks.

Southeast had two losing streaks of six games and two winning streaks of three games.

One of the Redhawks' winning streaks consisted of pure dominance against Alabama State, The Citadel and Savannah State in which Southeast won each match in three straight sets.

The other winning streak for Southeast included a sweep of OVC opponents SIU Edwardsville and Tennessee State and a 3-2 win against Eastern Illinois.

Southeast received major contributions from sophomore setter Katarina Rotta, who led the team in assists per set with an average of 7.99 and accumulated an overall season total of 927 of the team's total of 1275.

Conference play for the Redhawks started off on a bad note with three straight losses to Murray State, Austin Peay and UT Martin before capturing their first win against Tennessee Tech on Oct. 3 at Houck Field House.

The Redhawks will lose four players to graduation, including outside hitters Alex Rohlfing and Andrea Baylin and two right side hitters in Kelsey Keeve and Stranges.

But while the Redhawks are losing senior leadership, they are returning an all-conference player in junior middle blocker Taylor Masterson, who earned a spot on the All-OVC team. Masterson led the team in blocks with 118 and averaged 2.48 kills per set, a statistic that is second overall to senior outside hitter Andrea Baylin.

Freshman middle blocker Nzingha Clarke earned all-newcomer honors for her total of 109 blocks on the season and a season average of 1.12 blocks per game and averaged 1.23 during conference play.

Both Clarke and Masterson are a great defensive presence for Southeast and the abundance of playing time this season led to a development of connection on and off the court.

"We had some big wins over some good teams," Masterson said. "We fought back to get in the tournament when we were basically on the edge there and even while we didn't end the season how we wanted to, but I think we can find successes within this season."

The overall plans and goals for next season will be to make sure to welcome the already signed incoming freshmen, which include Korrine Croft, Keegan Fornoff, Lauren Salerno and Madeline Grimm.

The Redhawks plan to increase the comfortability of the new signees through their "buddy" assign process, a system created to make newcomers feel welcome and make sure they feel like are a player of the team, not just a freshman.

Plans of making it back to the OVC tournament and winning it will be the main goal for the Redhawks next season.