The Southeast Missouri State volleyball team’s perseverance, passion and ability to keep composure allowed it to pick up a victory against Ohio Valley Conference opponent Eastern Kentucky on Oct.9 at Houck Field House.

Southeast picked up its second OVC by winning 3-1 (26-24, 25-20, 25-17, 25-20).

The Redhawks were able to start off on a good and early run they were able to maintain their lead in and throughout the the second and final set of the match against the Colonels.

Southeast received additional support from the “eighth player,” also known as the fans, who provided words of encouragement and team chants that included “Let’s go Southeast” and “Woosh” during serves and kept consistent and high leveled crowd noise while the Colonels served the ball.

The fan support throughout the entire match was a component that was appreciated by the team.

“The crowd gives us a huge, a huge advantage, you know we want to see that and you they call it home-court advantage for a reason,” Southeast coach Julie Yankus said. We are so happy to have the fans to come out, we had a few volleyball teams here today but the students that were here including the president was in that group of students cheering and he was involved in every play which was amazing,”.

Junior setter Katarina Rotta was one of the key contributors to the change in momentum for the Redhawks in the first set by leading the team with eight assists in addition to her three successful out of five attempted kills.

“We started off just rough, we looked nervous on the court and we weren’t meshing,” Rotta said. “ We don’t know what was really going on when we first started but we weren’t playing like ourselves.” “And then halfway through the first set coach threw me in and I know that it wasn’t totally me by any means that made the difference but as a team we changed our mindsets and we made it instead of not wanting to lose a point, we wanted to win every point.”

Rotta finished the match with a game-high 42 assists, just eight less than Eastern Kentucky accumulated as a team, 15 digs and four kills on the evening.

In addition to Rotta’s performance, she commented on the crowd and how their participation fulfilled her childhood dreams of being a college volleyball player.

Rotta acknowledged her family members, team and friends for their emotional, social and spiritual support as she overcame her recent inconsistent play.

Set two began with Southeast leading Eastern Kentucky 9-3, causing the Colonels to call a timeout following an ace by junior libero Jade Mortimer. The timeout shifted the momentum to Eastern Kentucky temporarily allowing them to cut the lead in half following a four-point run.

The defensive pressure from Southeast and attack errors by Eastern Kentucky led to Southeast closing the second set out with four consecutive points.

Eastern Kentucky got an early start in the third set by regaining the lead late after capitalizing off the errors of Southeast and preventing them from closing out the match in three games.

The Colonels won set three 25-17 on a kill from sophomore outside hitter Celina Sanks.

With fatigue or endurance not being visible by the actions from the crowd in the fourth and final set, Southeast provided the fans with several reasons to continue to cheer by outscoring Eastern Kentucky 11-4 causing the Colonels to take another timeout.

While this timeout didn’t change the overall momentum of the set due to the lead staying at four or more points throughout, contributions came from several different players in this final set but predominantly from sophomore middle blocker Nzingha Clarke and sophomore outside hitter Krissa Gearring who combined for 11 of the 17 kills for the set.

Southeast closed out the match by winning the final set 25-20 improving its record to 6-12 overall and 2-3 in the OVC.