CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. – Southeast Missouri women's volleyball (6-10, 1-1) swept Jacksonville State (14-6, 1-1) Saturday afternoon at the Houck Field House for the Redhawks first Ohio Valley Conference win of the season.
 
The victory also extended SEMO's home winning streak to 5-0 and halted the team's losing skid at eight matches.
 
"Clearly we are prepared to play at home this year, right now," head coach Julie Yankus said after the match. "It's great that we can use that home-court advantage and come out and play hard like this. It's great to get that first OVC win because there are no gimme matches in this entire conference. I'm so excited how we won that as well because it just gives them confidence and understand that we are a very well-balanced, quality team."
 
Southeast utilized a balanced attack to power past the Gamecocks in straight sets, 25-14, 25-22, 25-20.
 
"To have no attackers in double-digits, I don't care if that means everybody is going to be getting seven, eight or nine kills which is what we've got across the board for our six attackers and all hitting at a very high percentage," Yankus said. "Being that well balanced of an offense is going to be very, very hard for teams to compete with."
 
Krista Berns led the SEMO offense with nine kills and a season-high hitting percentage of .727. Haley Bilbruck, Nzingha Clarke and Krissa Gearring all added eight kills each and Madara Bajare and Mikayla Kuhlmann chipped in seven each.
 
Bilbruck hit a season-best clip of .538 and Bajare swung .429 to tie her season-high.
 
Southeast jumped out to an early 1-0 lead in the match courtesy of a 25-14 first set win. The Redhawks hit a match-best .500 in the opening set and Berns and Kuhlmann each had four kills. Berns hit a perfect 1.000 hitting mark in the first set.
 
SEMO jumped out to a 5-0 lead from kills by Berns, Bilbruck and Kuhlmann along with a Gearring ace prompting a Gamecocks timeout. Gearring finished the match with a season-best four service aces.
 
Southeast never trailed in the opening set and cruised to a 25-14 set win.
 
The second and third sets were tighter contests.
 
Down 14-10 in the second frame, SEMO went on an 8-1 run to take an 18-15 edge in the set. Clarke hit two of her four second set kills and added two blocks with Gearring to cut Jacksonville's lead to 14-13 and force a Gamecocks timeout.
 
JSU would then rally off four straight points to reclaim the lead, 22-21, before the Redhawks closed the set with four unanswered points punctuated by a Bilbruck and Clarke block. Clarke finished the contest with four total blocks.
 
SEMO won the match with a 25-20 third set win. Bajare had five kills in the final set alone and hit three of them down the stretch to make the score 21-17. Gearring and Berns added back-to-back kills to grow the lead to 23-19 before a Gamecocks attack error and kill by Bilbruck ended the set.
 
Setter Keegan Fornoff dished out 25 assists and Allie Henkelman added 17.
 
Defensively, libero Ally Dion led the team with 13 digs and Gearring added nine.
 
SEMO continues their homestand against OVC foes, Austin Peay and Murray State, in a weekend set on Sept. 29 and 30 at Houck Field House. Friday's match is Houck 'FILLED' House, presented by Jimmy John's and Saturday is Take A Kid to the Game. Kids 14 and under receive free admission to the 1 p.m. match.