EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. – Jacksonville State's volleyball team saw its four-match win streak snapped on the road Friday night with a 3-1 loss to Southern Illinois-Edwardsville.
 
The loss for JSU (11-8, 5-2 Ohio Valley) was riddled with errors as the top offense in the league never found a rhythm inside the Vadalabene Center. Jax State hit just .057 as a team, totaled 38 attack errors, allowed eight aces and was out-blocked, 12-5. The 38 attacking miscues were the most since reaching that same mark on Sept. 22, 2009 in a 3-2 win at Tennessee Tech.
 
Despite the errant performance, JSU battled in every set with SIUE (10-9, 5-2 OVC) who now moves back into a five-way tie atop the conference standings with JSU and Morehead State going down on the same night.
 
Junior Kaylie Milton was the lone Gamecock to reach double-digits in kills with 10. She also led the team in digs with 16 as one of four to up 10-or-more Cougar attacks. Freshman Erin Carmichael had 14 digs, followed by Sadie Anderson with 13 and Lexie Libs with 11. A key factor for JSU hanging around was the return of senior Shayla Schmidt who entered midway through the second set for her first appearance since early September due to injury. She proceeded to add eight kills, five digs and led JSU with three blocks.
 
A kill from freshman Taylor Pribyl tied the first set at 14-14, but it would be the final time JSU was even with a 5-0 SIUE run to follow. JSU trimmed the margin back down to 24-21 late, but it wasn't enough as the Cougars took the first set on their home floor. The home team jumped out to a 14-5 lead quickly in the second as JSU struggled to find any success with 20 errors. SIUE doubled up JSU 18-9, before reaching set-point at 24-14. There, JSU rattled off six-straight points but it was too little, too late as the Cougars closed out the set to grab a 2-0 match lead.
 
Things looked to be heading the a similar direction as SIUE opened up a 4-1 lead to begin the third, but JSU responded to knot the score at 5-5, and begin to battle point-for-point. The Gamecocks led 20-17 late, only to see SIUE reclaim a 22-21 edge before a critical block by sophomore Lena Kindermann brought JSU back to 22-22. Jax State used another block to gain momentum toward the end to take the final four points to extend the match with a 25-22 victory.
 
Trailing 15-10 in the fourth, the longest rally of the night eventually went the way of the Gamecocks capped by a kill by Anderson. JSU added two more after a kill from Kaylee Frear, who finished with nine putaways, to pull within two. From there, SIUE closed in on its fifth-consecutive win with a 10-4 run to finish the match.
 
JSU heads across the state now to Eastern Illinois for a 2 p.m. match with the Panthers on Saturday afternoon at Lantz Arena.