Senior outside hitter Jill Miller had five kills in the fifth and decisive game to help Southeast Missouri eliminate Eastern Illinois from the Ohio Valley Conference tournament on Friday afternoon in Lantz Arena.

“She is a stud for us,” head coach Renata Nowacki said. “We relied on her offensively just as much as defensively.”

Miller finished with a match-high 26 kills and 15 digs to lead the Redhawks into a second round matchup with Eastern Kentucky on Saturday.

The Panthers at times resembled the team that began the OVC season 9-0 but more frequently looked like the team that ended up losing five of their last eight matches to finish the 2005 season at 16-9.

That was the case in game three, when the Panthers hit .044 and lost 30-21 to fall behind 2-1.

“It was a ball-handling issue,” Eastern head coach Lori Bennett said. “We were pushing Maren back and not allowing her to run our offense.”

The Panthers struggled with their pacing as they were not running their offensive quick and aggressive. That is when they are at their best, Bennett said.

“When we start to hesitate and question what’s going on, we slow down,” she said.

The team’s slumps and their inability to get out of them has been an ongoing struggle all season, senior libero Heather Redenbo said. Redenbo finished her career strong defensively with 32 digs.

“Whenever that happens, we start playing as individuals and don’t really play as the cohesive team that we really are,” she said. “We were able to work out of (the slumps) in game four.”

Eastern hit .382 with 28 kills in the fourth game and led by as many as seven points to tie the match with a 30-24 win.

Throughout the match, the Panthers did not have any answers for Miller.

“She was unbelievable today,” Bennett said. “She was through our block, around our block, pretty much at will.”

First team all-conference selection Jessica Koeper had 20 kills for the Redhawks.

The Panthers had five players with double digits in kills and were led by junior outside hitter Kara Sorenson and sophomore middle hitter Kera Griffin with 18.

Griffin committed just one attack error and hit .515 for the match.

The Redhawks jumped out to a 4-0 lead but Eastern came back after a timeout to tie the game at 4. After the teams exchanged points, SEMO won 10 of the final 13 points to win the match.

SEMO hit .435 in the final game and held Eastern to a .130 hitting percentage.

This was the third matchup for the two teams. The Redhawks took Eastern to five games on Oct. 5 in Lantz Arena then swept the Panthers at Cape Girardeau on Nov. 2. SEMO seemed to have Eastern’s number this season.

“With us and Eastern it is such a rivalry that we know both teams want it that much more,” said Nowacki. “This game could have gone either way. We’re just fortunate that we are walking away with a ‘W’ and going to the semis.”