Little Rock misses opportunity for conference gain in heartbreaking loss to SEMO

Little Rock dominated the first two sets and had visiting Southeast Missouri on the ropes in a pivotal conference matchup Tuesday night at the Jack Stephens Center, but the evening would somersault into something unexpected with the Trojans falling in the next three sets of a 3-2 loss to the Redhawks.
 
Little Rock (14-11 overall, 9-3 OVC) lost out on an opportunity to leapfrog SEMO (12-10, 9-1) into second place in the OVC and instead falls two full games behind the Redhawks, who now own the head-to-head tiebreaker with a season sweep. Little Rock lost 3-1 in Cape Girardeau, Mo. on October 2.
 
Jaycee Kennedy blocked a career-high 10 shots in a phenomenal defensive effort and Bella Cherry led the Trojans with 15 kills to go with six blocks in what turned out to be a stellar night for the high school teammates from Texarkana. Dariana Valencia set 27 assists and had nine digs, A'lanae Margaritha and Kaila Harris each had 10 kills and Jeila Fullerton finished with 16 digs, nine kills and four blocks.
 
Little Rock hit .407 in a dominant opening set and took advantage of SEMO's struggles (-.024) in the second to put the Redhawks on the verge of a sweep. But the visitors responded by hitting .367, .306, and .297, respectively in the final three sets, while the Trojans managed just .136 attacking over sets 3-5.
 
Harris finished off a double-double, adding 15 digs to her kill total, Margaritha had three blocks, Andrea Roman recorded 24 digs, and Kaylee Smith finished with 21 assists and seven digs. Crismeyli Rodriguez shined off the bench again, putting down eight kills while hitting .357 for the evening.