SENECA, Mo. — This historic season for Seneca volleyball came to an end on Saturday in the quarterfinal round of the Class 3 state tournament after suffering a 3-1 loss to Eldon.
The Indians opened the contest with an opening-set win before the Mustangs rattled off victories in the following three sets to knock off Seneca 27-29, 25-20, 25-10 and 25-18.
“I thought that we played very, very well,” Seneca coach Rachel Ayo said. “This deep into the postseason, you’re not going to see a bad team. Eldon is a very good team. We played really well in the first set. But, in the second, third and fourth set, we just made a lot of errors. A lot of errors that we normally don’t make. Honestly, that is what decided the match tonight—who errored more than the other team.”
Seneca’s season ends with a 23-12-1 record, with the Indians accomplishing a lot of firsts in a year they finished as one of the eight best teams in Class 3.
“They won the program’s first conference title since 1976, won the first district title ever and was the first team to make it out of the sectional round,” Ayo said. “They just continued to make history. It would have been nice to go to Cape Girardeau and continue that history, but I told the girls in the locker room that there is nothing to hang your heads about. We worked our butts off this year and did what no other team here has been able to accomplish in the past. They need to hold their heads high because they had a great season.”
The Indians graduate five seniors from this year’s team—Brylee Sage, Tatum White, Parker Long, Braxton Raulston and Amber Garrison.
“We will definitely miss them,” Ayo said. “We had five great seniors this year who were great leaders on the floor. Those are going to be some big roles to fill and not just the volleyball skill level.”
Eldon moves on to the Class 3 Final Four with a matchup against Blair Oaks (31-3-1) on Thursday in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
Long finished with 20 kills and 20 digs to lead Seneca, while Raulston added 11 kills, 11 digs and five aces in service. Sage had 44 assists, while Jera Jameson closed with 13 kills and Ella Graham finished with nine digs.
The opening set started in favor of Seneca after a seven-point service run from Raulston, which included three aces as well as two kills from Jameson and a kill from Long, gave SHS an 11-3 advantage. Eldon scored 12 of the next 18 points to trim the lead to two, 17-15, off the back of a kill from Audrey Dinwiddie and a block by Hannah Opie. Long earned kills on six of the next seven points for the Indians to push the lead back to 24-20. The Mustangs rallied hard on Dinwiddie’s service, scoring four straight to take a 25-24 lead. Seneca took the advantage on a kill from Raulston followed by a kill from Jameson to go up 27-26 before closing it out off a kill from Jameson and an attack error.
Opie went on an early five-point run in service early in the second set to give the Mustangs a 7-2 advantage. Seneca chipped away at the lead before tying things up at 12s on an ace from Raulston, gaining the lead on a Mustangs’ error and building a 14-12 advantage on another ace by Raulston. Eldon scored the next five points to go up 17-14 and held onto the lead through the remainder of the set.
Seneca trailed 9-8 in the third set after a kill from Garrison and an ace from White, but a six-point service run from Dinwiddie followed up by an eight-point run from Haley Henderson ended the third set abruptly with the Mustangs taking a 2-1 advantage. Emily Davis had three kills to fill out Henderson’s run.
The Indians held a 7-4 lead in the fourth set after an ace from Jameson, but a sideout kill from Jaci Mueller sent Mueller to the service line for a three-point run filled out by a kill from Dinwiddie, an ace and a kill from Corin Davis to give Eldon the 8-7 advantage. The Mustangs were up four before a kill from Jameson and a kill from Long ultimately trimmed the deficit to one, 16-15. That was as close as Seneca got to the lead, with Mueller adding a kill and an ace, and a tip kill from Dinwiddie, to push the lead back to four, 19-15. Eldon scored nine of the last 12 to clinch the win in advance.
