CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – Jacksonville State's threat to dethrone the No. 1 seed and defending champion, Austin Peay, came up just short in the semifinal round of the 2018 Ohio Valley Conference volleyball tournament.
 
The Gamecocks (18-14) entered Friday night's matchup with APSU (27-4) having put an end to its postseason woes on Thursday in a 3-0 sweep of Southern Illinois-Edwardsville in the opening round of the tournament. First-year head coach Todd Garvey's squad gave the Governors all they could handle before a 3-1 season-ending defeat at the Dunn Center.
 
Playing in front of a hostile crowd on APSU's home court, JSU made its mark early with a set one victory to put the pressure on the Govs who rolled through the league with a 14-2 regular-season record.
 
A 4-0 run by the Gamecocks pulled JSU away from a 16-16 tie, forcing the Govs to call for time. APSU would get back within two multiple times as the two exchanged serves, but JSU finished with five kills from five different Gamecocks to seal the opening frame, 25-22.
 
APSU led 13-9 in the second, before a trio of kills from redshirt-sophomore Sadie Anderson helped JSU even the score at 14-14. Anderson had a big night finishing with a career-high 17 kills on a .319 hitting percentage. A kill from junior Kaylee Frear made it 22-20 JSU, but APSU locked down the remainder of the set with five-straight points to avoid a 2-0 match deficit.
 
Frear was a big part of JSU's 12 team blocks as the All-Conference selection had seven blocks of her own. Sophomore setter Lexie Libs, another one of JSU's All-OVC honorees, had a part in five blocks while dishing 47 assists to pace the Gamecock offense.
 
Libs' distribution was pretty evenly spread behind Anderson's 17 successful swing. Lena Kindermann capped her sensational freshman season with 11 kills, and finishes as the only Gamecock above 300 for the year. Frear added eight kills, followed by senior Mackenzie Rombach with seven in her 136th and final outing for the Red and White.
 
Rombach's second kill of the opening set cemented the Ottawa, Ill., native in the offensive record books as just the 20th Gamecock in program history to reach 1,000 career kills. She already placed her name among the best defensively, climbing to second on the school's Division I career blocks list, finishing with 471 after two more rejections on Friday.
 
The third set was nearly point-for-point, never separated by more than two points, before a late 4-0 run by the Govs handed APSU a 21-18 advantage. Anderson and Rombach responded with consecutive kills to pull within one, but JSU was unable to knot things up as APSU took the set, 25-21.
 
As momentum built for the Govs in front of a home crowd in the fourth, JSU struggled to keep pace. A short 3-0 run after a timeout pulled the Gamecocks back within one at 11-10, but the margin was quickly back to four at 15-11. JSU's last gasp came on a kill from Frear that made it 16-14 APSU, before the Govs mounted a 9-1 run to close out the match victory and advance to its second-straight championship match with Murray State.
 
Sophomore Dani Steele recorded a team-best 17 digs for JSU, and was joined in double figures by Kaylie Milton with 11. Senior Ashley Clingan brought her Gamecock career to a close with nine digs as the former walk-on from Jacksonville, Ala., established herself as one of JSU's most reliable back row reserves over the last four years.