Eastern Illinois gets the win 3-1 in four sets (25-13, 25-27, 25-21, 25-23) tonight against Southeast Missouri State which gives them the first game out of their double header for this weekend.
The first set EIU opened up with a 9-0 run. That early run gave the team good energy and the Panthers carried that through the rest of the night.
Senior outside hitter Tori Mohesky with 4 kills and sophomore outside hitter Katie Kopshever with five kills in the first set played a big role in getting the team into a good and aggressive rhythm.
As the night continued both teams played good volleyball, and that led to some tension between the teams and the officials.
On both sides of the net there were multiple challenges being called. After the first challenge was called by EIU, to pass the time from the challenge deliberation, the Panthers did a team celebration of a human bench press. There were 4 successful challenges called from both teams in the second set.
Unlike the first set, SEMO went on to win the second game with a close score of 27-25.
EIU led the set in kills with 15 to SEMO’s 14 with both Mohesky and sophomore outside hitter Destiny Walker adding six kills each.
There was a lot of back and forth play between both teams.
The rallies continued to get longer and longer as the night went on which brought even more energy and excitement to the game.
Head coach Ryan Millar said the team has been preparing for long rallies, and he was encouraged by it.
“You know, it’s funny that that happened,” Millar said. “I’m encouraged by it because the last two weeks of practice since the matches at Southern Indiana that we lost over the last couple weekends ago, we’ve put a huge focus on our defense and just overall scrappiness, covering balls, covering hitters.”
With a score of 25-23, Eastern Illinois won another close game in the third set. Each game continued to get more and more tense.
In this set there were multiple plays where EIU had some good digs that required hustle and amazing skill.
During the third set Walker had a good dig where she ended up rolling and getting right back up.
“You’re seeing that play out with just way more activity defensively,” Millar said. “So I was really encouraged by that tonight because I thought the girls did a really good job defensively keeping balls in the air that allow us to be able to transition those for points”
In the 4th and final set, EIU and SEMO went point for point almost, finishing with the Panthers winning with 25-23.
Both teams had an additional 12 kills in the last set but overall EIU had 56 kills to SEMO’s 46 to win the first game of the double header weekend.
Mohesky finished the night with a career high of 17 kills paired with 13 digs.
Millar thought the whole team played great tonight, but gave a special shoutout to Mohesky.
“She’s just a really good,consistent piece to our offense,” Millar said. “She probably takes some of the hardest swings out of system. And she just continually had either put the ball in the court or put the ball on the floor. And it’s not an easy role. And she’s really just grabbed onto it really well. I thought she had a great match tonight.”
Some more key players were senior setter Catalina Rochaix, who led both teams with 49 assists.
Walker and Kopshever led EIU with 16 and 13 kills behind Mohesky.
Sophomore libero Ariadna Pereles had 19 digs, and Walker with 18 digs.
Senior middle blocker Emma Schroeder with five blocks and Rochaix with two blocks.
Although EIU finished the night with the win, they play the Redhawks again tomorrow for their second game this weekend.
“We’re going to have to come in with the same type of execution, the same level of execution and excellence and energy tomorrow to be able to come out with a win. They’re probably going to make some adjustments.”
EIU will play SEMO in match two, at 4p.m.
Morgan Gillespie can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].
