Two teams will meet tonight, both with winning streaks.

But only one will leave with its streak intact.

The Panthers and Southeast Missouri will play at 7 p.m. at the Houck Fieldhouse, both looking to get their next consecutive victory.

Eastern just came off a winning weekend, winning two in a row against other Ohio Valley Conference opponents, Tennessee State and Tennessee Tech.

The Redhawks are on a six-match winning streak that started Oct. 4 with a 3-2 win at Austin Peay.

The only teams to have longer winning streaks than the Redhawks this season are Morehead State and Murray State with seven-straight matches.

The two teams have opposite conference records. The Panthers are 4-9 and 11-11 overall and SEMO is 9-4 and 14-10 overall.

Eastern head coach Lori Bennett said starting players and players off the bench were important necessities for the Panthers success over the weekend.

This past weekend, 11 of the Eastern’s 13 players had playing time.

“Everyone on the team is ready to the extent that they know what they have to do on a daily basis,” she said. “We just had some players step up for the victories.”

Eastern sophomore middle blocker Amy Sesol, who had a career-high 13 blocks this weekend, tied her career-best with seven against the Lady Tigers.

Sesol said after the Tech match the team had its confidence and energy back.

Sesol, like her coach, said it would be important for the Panthers to maintain its “high-level of play.”

“It’s important just to know that we are good,” she said. “To know that the way we played Friday and Saturday can be repeated, and we can play like this the rest of the season.”

Sesol said the reason they did so well was by cutting down on errors in the match.

“Our success had to do with our practice,” Sesol said. “Everyone decided we wanted to do this. We knew we had to stop shooting ourselves in the foot.”

The Panthers lost the last time the two teams met in a five-game match on Sept. 18.

Eastern’s loss against SEMO came during its six-match losing streak earlier in the season.

Part of the reason for the loss may be accounted to poor hitting and errors.

Eastern had 18 serving errors and in the third game of the match, had a -0.98 hitting percentage. Their best hitting percentage in that match was a .333 in the second game. In games one, four and five, the Panthers failed to reach above .200.

On the Redhawks’ side, sophomore outside hitter Karleigh DeLong led her team with 18 kills and 20 digs. They also dominated in blocks 18-7, hitting percentage .205 to .134 and digs 98-94.

The Panthers bested SEMO in overall kills 74-62, in assists 67-58 and points 87-82.

SEMO is close to breaking some Redhawk individual and team records.

SEMO’s head coach Renata Nowacki is four victories shy of her 50th career coaching victory.

Senior middle blocker Brenna Schlader recently moved into third place for blocks in team history and only needs six more to move into second place.