LAKELAND, Fla. --- The Ave Maria volleyball team snapped a 15-game losing streak against the Southeastern Fire on Wednesday night, defeating SEU in five sets. The Gyrenes hit a season best .211 in the match with a season-high 61 kills to 22 errors.
 
Southeastern won the opening set 25-23 before the Gyrenes won the next two, 25-19 and 25-22. After the Fire evened the match in the fourth set, 25-23, the Gyrenes ran away with the fifth set 15-8 to clinch the win.
 
Ave Maria held the lead for most of the opening set and took an 11-6 lead after six straight points on Alejandra Suarez's serve. Madelyn Haut and McKenna Tyson each had two kills during the run. AMU maintained their lead and held a 21-19 edge before four straights from the Fire gave Southeastern a 23-21 advantage. Southeastern held on to win the opening set 25-23.
 
The second set went back and forth early with a couple unforced errors giving the Gyrenes a 12-9 lead. Southeastern responded with eight straight points to take a five point advantage.  Back-to-back kills by Tyson and Flavia Rusterholz followed by a SEU attack error brought the Gyrenes within two. After a SEU point made it 18-15, Talia Samuels and Haut each tallied a kill and an error by the Fire tied the match at 18. Trailing 19-18, Ave Maria won the final seven points of the set to even the match at 1-1. Samuels had two kills in the run and Victoria Schein ended the set with a service ace.
 
The Blue and Green used three separate four-point runs to jump out to a 14-6 lead in the third set. Southeastern battled back and pulled to within one, 17-16, after two straight kills by Emily Boehlein. Erica Chenard responded with a kill and then a service ace to give AMU a 19-16 lead. With the set tied at 22, back-to-back kills by Haut and then a service ace by Suarez closed out the third set and gave AMU a 2-1 edge in the match.
 
Southeastern held the lead for most of the fourth set with AMU staying within a few points for most of the set. With the Gyrenes trailing by four, 17-13, AMU began to chip away at the SEU lead and pulled to within one, 23-22, after a kill by Haut. Two service errors by the Gyrenes in the final three points gave SEU the set win to force a fifth and deciding set.
 
In the fifth stanza, a race to 15, AMU took advantage of a few attack errors and a missed serve by the Fire to take a 5-2 lead. Leading 6-5, Ave Maria won five-straight points to take a commanding lead in the shortened fifth set. Katie O'Donnell and Haut each had a kill and Suarez tallied her second service ace of the game in the run. Southeastern pulled to within four, 11-7, but the Gyrenes won four of the last five points to win the set 15-8.
 
Haut hit an incredible .515 on the night, tallying 18 kills on 33 attempts with one error. She also had five total blocks. Her 18 kills ties for the fifth most in a five-set match in AMU history.
 
Katie Grose had an all-around great night with 40 assists, 10 digs, seven kills and a .353 hitting percentage. Her 40 assists is the fifth most in school history for a match.
 
Miah Pena led the back line for AMU with a team-best 26 digs. Katie O'Donnell and Alejandra Suarez also finished with double-digit digs with 10 each. AMU had 80 digs as a team.
 
Rusterholz added nine kills while Tyson tallied eight kills for AMU.
 
Southeatern hit .160 on the night with 55 kills to 27 errors. They tallied 50 assists and 90 digs. Emily Boehlein led the Fire with 16 kills. Sarah Castillo had 42 assists and 12 digs. Grace Ball led SEU with 17 digs.
 
The Gyrenes make the trip North this weekend to take on Coastal Georgia in Brunswick on Saturday. The conference match-up will be a 2 p.m. start at Coffin Gym.