MURRAY, Ky. – Southeast Missouri women's volleyball (10-17, 5-8) took the opening two sets on Murray State (17-8, 9-4) Friday night at Racer Arena before dropping the next three sets to the Racers.
 
With the win, Murray State has won both meetings in 2017.
 
Southeast opened the match with a 25-22 first set win and then took the second set, 25-18.
 
In the second stanza, the Redhawks went on a 6-0 run to grow their lead to 20-11 after kills from Marie Less, Krissa Gearring, Haley Bilbruck, Nzingha Clarke and two block assists. Gearring and Bilbruck each added two more kills and Krista Berns hit two of her six total kills to extend the lead to 24-17. SEMO closed out the set with a kill from Madara Bajare.
 
Southeast hit a match-best .300 with 17 kills and only two errors in the second set.
 
With their backs against the wall, MSU responded with three-straight set victories (25-23, 25-21, 15-6) to snatch the match.
 
With SEMO leading the third set 22-15, the Racers rallied off eight straight points to cut the deficit and take a 23-22 lead. A Murray State service error tied the set at 23-23 but the Racers finished the set with kills from Rachel Giustino and Courtney Radle.
 
Murray State then knotted the match at 2-2 with a 25-21 fourth set win.
 
In the decisive fifth and final set, two Racers errors put SEMO up 2-0. A Clarke kill would tie the set early at 3-3. Murray State would then claim the match on a 12-3 run as SEMO came as close as 6-14 with a Gearring kill.
 
Gearring led the Redhawks offense with 19 kills and recorded 21 digs for her 10th double-double performance of the season. Gearring also now moves to 10th all-time in SEMO program history with 1,262 career kills. Entering the match she was a kill behind Nancy Scheller who posted 1,244 career kills from 1987-91.
 
Bajare tallied a career-high 10 kills on a match-high .296 hitting percentage.
 
Nzingha Clarke recorded nine kills and five blocks. With the blocks, Clarke also etches her name in the Southeast Missouri record books as 10th all-time for total blocks as a Redhawk with 441. Brenna Schlader had 438 total blocks from 2004-07.
 
Less recorded eight kills for her third-straight match with eight or more. She also tallied a career-high 29 digs with two service aces.
 
Keegan Fornoff dished out 24 assists and Allie Henkelman had 22. Henkelman and Fornoff each had double-double outings with 11 digs each.
 
Libero Ally Dion led the team defensively with a career-high 30 digs. 
 
Southeast travels to Clarksville, Tennessee for a Saturday afternoon matinee match against Austin Peay at 2 p.m. to close out the regular season road slate.