With only six matches left in the season, Eastern’s volleyball team is back home in Charleston where it will stay for the remainder of the year.

The Panthers have a six-match home stand to end off the season and are playing arguably their best volleyball of the year.

“It’ll be nice to play at home again, we’ve played a lot of road games this season,” head coach Alan Segal said.

Coming off a five-set victory against Tennessee State in Nashville, Tenn., the Panthers have now won two out of their last three matches.

After going on a nine game losing skid that plagued them throughout most of the month of October, the team is finally showing the type of volleyball Segal believes it is capable of playing.

Rebounding After the First Set

The Panthers last two wins have come against Southern Illinois-Edwardsville on Oct. 16 and Tennessee State Saturday.

In both of those matches the Panthers dropped the first set of the game and gave the momentum to the opposing team.

However, the difference between the Panthers wins against SIU-E and TSU is that unlike previous matches earlier on in the season.

The team managed to battle through the first set, tie up the match in the second set and keep the momentum going their way throughout the rest of the match.

Against the Cougars, Eastern dropped the first set 28-26, but persevered and ended up winning the next three sets to claim its first victory in 10 matches.

“That win was just what we needed,” junior middle blocker Jorie Dieter said.

Similarly, after a series of hitting errors against Tennessee State, the Panthers dropped the first set 25-20.

However, the Panthers bounced back, and tied the match up at one set apiece.

Although they lost the third set, the team kept battling for every point and won the match in five sets.

Never giving up

The theme for the Panthers the past couple of weekends has been to never give up.

Though many times the Panthers have found themselves down in the match, or a set behind, the team has battled for every point and is finally being rewarded for its hard work.

“When you compete hard for every point, good things happen,” Segal said.

Earlier in the season, the Panthers had a hard time coming back after being down in matches. However, in the past couple of weeks the team has shown the ability to battle through adversity and has shown a lot of promise for next season.

Kevin Maras can be reached at 581-7944 or kjmaras@eiu.edu.

Sophomore libero Brittany Wallace gets ready to pass the ball during the match against Jacksonville State on Oct. 10 in Lantz Arena.(Chelsea Grady/The Daily Eastern News)

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