LAKE CHARLES— McNeese volleyball battled until the end but fell short in its 3-1 (25-21, 25-20, 16-25, 25-20) loss to Southeastern Saturday in its regular season finale and Senior Day. Seniors
Nejra Hanic and Rena Cakir were both honored prior to the match.
"We have done a lot of great things this season and we just have to go back to practice," said head coach
Sasha Karelov. It's back to zero zero at this point and regroup and highlight the things that have gotten us to this point because we want to extend our season as long as possible.
"Our seniors are two of the most mature, really good human beings that care about their teammates. I'm excited for their next chapter to see what they do in the real world because that's what it's all about. We try to prepare them for life after volleyball because it ends at some point."
McNeese (15-16, 13-5 SLC) snapped Southeastern's consecutive sweeps by winning the third set to extend the match. Southeastern (26-4, 17-1) claimed the outright regular season title with today's win.
The match was tightly contested at times with each team going on scoring runs to either take the lead or stretch their lead.
McNeese's blocking came into play in the fourth set as the Cowgirls out blocked Southeastern 18-12 and outhit the Lions .227 to .212.
The Lions' defense played a huge part in the win by collecting 74 digs along with five aces.
McNeese ended the match with three players picking up double figure kills.
Kayla Wilson led the Cowgirls with 15 kills while
Tshilanda Diouf was credited with 12 kills and
Sanni Rantanen added 11 kills. Diouf hit .435 on the day with only two errors in 23 attempts and led all players with five blocks.
Bailey Tillman led a trio of Cowgirls who collected double figure digs with a match high 22 digs.
Carissa Chainey picked up 12 digs and
Kendall Osgood had 10.
Setter
Megan Grose lead all players with 46 assists.
Southeastern was led in kills by Kailin Newsome who collected a match high 20 kills. Rachel Hartmann had 14 kills and completed her double double with 12 digs. Ansley Tullis led Southeastern with 16 digs.
