MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – St. Thomas University's Volleyball team (5-11, 4-4 TSC) lost their matchup against the Southeastern University Fire 16-2, 8-1 TSC) in straight sets (15-25. 20-25, 23-25) on Friday night from the Fernandez Family Center.

The Fire started out the game by jumping out to an early 5-8 lead over the Bobcats. St. Thomas was unable to cut the Southeastern lead to less than four throughout the remainder of the set, ultimately dropping the set by a score of 15-25.

St. Thomas sought to tie the match in the second set against SEU and opened up the set with two consecutive points following a Krista Kolbinskie kill. Southeastern reclaimed the lead and forced St. Thomas to burn a timeout with the score at 5-9. STU came out of the break with a renewed focus, recording four consecutive points, to get back to even at 9-9, two of the points came courtesy of Victoria Philpot blocks as she continued her solid defensive play at the net. The Fire reclaimed the lead at 9-11 but once again, St. Thomas ran off a four-point swing to take another two-point lead as Arianna Bolinger forced SEU to take a timeout following a kill. Southeastern came out of the timeout and once again took the lead from the Bobcats and did not look back, claiming their second set victory of the match by a score of 20-25.

The Bobcats had their backs against the wall once again, having to overcome a 0-2 set deficit in the third set against Southeastern, who currently sits in second place in Sun Conference standings. St. Thomas came out of the break with four consecutive points to open an advantage over Southeastern, as Philpot, Kolbinskie and Carli Batsel all recorded a kill to extend the lead. SEU battled back and tied the set at 7-7, before once again, STU ran off another four-point swing to take an 11-7 advantage as the Bobcats capitalized off three-consecutive attack errors by SEU. Southeastern and St. Thomas battled in a back-and-forth affair for the rest of the match, never being separated by more than three-points and tying six times before SEU was ahead 20-23 and sat just two-points away from claiming their eighth Sun Conference win of the season. St. Thomas was able to force a tie at 23-23 before SEU finished the Bobcats off with back-to-back points to win the match in straight sets.

Overall, the Bobcats have lost four consecutive matches and sit at an even 4-4 in Sun Conference play. St. Thomas will be back in action tomorrow afternoon from the Fernandez Center as the Bobcats take on Webber International with the match set to begin at 2 p.m.