Sikeston's SEMO Conference grasp slipping

sports@standard-democrat.com

NEW MADRID -- After five years of domination by the Sikeston Lady Bulldogs the SEMO Conference Volleyball Tournament has a good chance of crowing a new champion this season if Tuesday's pool play is any indication.

Coming out with the first seed after the eight-set battle was the Kennett Lady Indians, who just edged out host New Madrid County Central on point differential to take the top spot.

Sikeston's Lauren Beydler passes during their match against NMCC Tuesday. (Brent Shipman photo)

Sikeston's Lauren Beydler passes during their match against NMCC Tuesday. (Brent Shipman photo)

"We split with Kennett and Oran, but both are good teams," NMCC head coach Diane Fowler said. "We had actually beaten both of them in full matches this season, but I felt like we might have had a little let down.

"We played hard all night in all eight games and that's the only way we're going to continue to get better."

Tuesday's pool play consisted of all five teams in the conference facing off with each other in two game sets. Both Kennett and NMCC finished the night at 6-2, but the Lady Indians held the advantage in a head-to-head tie breaker.

It was NMCC winning the first set 25-22 before Kennett came back and won the teams' second matchup 25-21. With the Lady Indians win coming with a point differential of four compared to NMCC's three-point win, the Lady Indians earned the top seed by the slimmest of margins, one point.

NMCC could have won the first seed outright with one more win over Oran. With the second set tied 24-24, however, NMCC saw a serve in the net hand Oran the win.

Though she'd obviously like to have the first seed, Fowler was satisfied to coming away seeded second on the bracket.

"Second is fine," Fowler said. "You have to beat everybody anyway in tournament play and at least everybody is still in it. I actually enjoyed watching my kids play tonight. I didn't see any huge breakdowns.

"When you look at the end of the Oran game we broke down a little bit, but we used to break down at 10 point, but now it's at 20. So we're getting closer."

Finishing with a 5-3 record in pool play, Oran earns the third-seed in the tournament while Charleston, with a 2-6 record, is seeded fourth.

The biggest drop from last year comes from Sikeston, who last year earned the top seed coming out of pool play and rolled to their fifth straight title. This year they'll be seeded in the fifth and final spot.

Bracket play will start Thursday with Sikeston and Charleston squaring off in the play-in match at 4 p.m. The winner of that contest will move on to play Kennett at 5:30 p.m.

NMCC and Oran will play in the other semifinal matchup at 7 p.m. with the SEMO Conference Championship scheduled to start at 8:30 p.m.

All games will be held at NMCC High School.

With the postseason right around the corner, Fowler is pleased such a balanced conference this year gives her team a chance to prepare for the postseason.

"We have to get better because we're in a really, really strong district," Fowler said. "This is really good for us to play to play nonstop until we can figure out our mistakes and learn how to correct them."