Eastern’s volleyball team will play a pair of Ohio Valley Conference matches, taking on Austin Peay tonight and Tennessee State tomorrow afternoon.

Both matches are at Lantz Arena, and Saturday’s match is senior night, as it is the Panthers’ last game of the season.

The team’s confidence is riding high after the Panthers’ straight set sweep over Southeast Missouri State Tuesday night head coach Kate Price said.

“I think our confidence is up a lot more than it was after the rough weekend on the road,” Price said. “I think we’re overall pretty confident and they’ve been playing pretty well in practice, so hopefully it transfers into the games.”

Saturday’s match represents the last time the team’s seniors will play at Lantz Arena.

Junior libero Brittany Wallace said this is not only the seniors, but the rest of the team’s last game together and everybody is fired up.

“I think it definitely transfers over to everyone,” Wallace said. “I think it’s something that’s just understood, everybody knows that not only is it our last home game as a team, but we understand that when we’re in they’re (the seniors’) position we’re going to want everybody to be ready to go.”

Price, who recently played college volleyball herself at Penn State, said that senior night is one of several “lasts” in a senior season.

“There’s a lot of lasts in your last season,” Price said. “I think it’s tough, but at the same time they want to come out and win.

They want their last weekend at home to be memorable and hopefully it’s a win and hopefully the underclassmen play for their seniors.”

The Panthers are currently tied with Tennessee State in the conference standings, so there is an added level of motivation said freshman outside hitter Reynae Hutchinson.

“We’re going in, we’ve got a lot of confidence. We know that we should beat these teams and knowing that we’re on the bubble for the OVC tournament motivates us even more,” Hutchinson said.

The Panthers have already played both of these teams this year, but it’s been just under a month since they have played Tennessee State and more than a month since they last played against Austin Peay.

This gap should not be too tough on the Panthers Wallace said.

“I don’t think that’s a factor at all,” Wallace said. “I think we’ve played good competition and we’ve been playing well since the last time we played them (Tennessee State and Austin Peay).

Following this weekend, the Panthers play two matches on the road next weekend against Tennessee Tech and Jacksonville State to close out the regular season.

If, after that, the Panthers are among the top six teams in the OVC based on conference record, they will be in the OVC tournament, which is scheduled to start Nov. 18 at the home

court of the No. 1 team.

Brad Kupiec can be reached at 581-7944 or bmkupiec@eiu.edu.

Chrissie Albers, a junior setter, sets the ball during Eastern’s game against Southeast Missouri at Lantz Arena Tuesday. Eastern beat Southeast Missouri 3-0. (Danny Damiani

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