This weekend the Eastern volleyball team, despite a 1-5 start to their Ohio Valley Conference schedule, has a chance to clinch a spot in the OVC tournament.

With a pair of wins against Tennessee Tech and Jacksonville State, or one win and a Tennessee State loss to Austin Peay on Friday night the Panthers will make the tournament.

Since the aforementioned start to the OVC schedule, the Panthers have gone 7-4 in the OVC and 8-4 overall.

They now stand poised to clinch a spot in the team’s first OVC tournament since 2005, five long years ago.

Five years may not seem like very long, but when you consider the fact that none of the five seniors honored last weekend at senior night have ever been to the OVC tournament in their Panther careers, the fact that they have the chance to make it this weekend seems pretty remarkable.

Also consider how amazing the turnaround would be if the Panthers could go from a season last year were they only won three conference matches to a year where they make the OVC tournament.

Add in that this is all in the first year under a new head coach and it just makes this potential feat all the more astounding.

By comparison, Bob Spoo is in his 24th year of coaching the football program, and they just snapped a nine game losing-streak dating back to last season, and they are out of the playoff hunt this year.

That all having been said, the Panthers need to stay focused this weekend and keep their eyes on the prize because this is the do-or-die, now-or-never scenario that stands in front of them now.

Their fate is in their hands, but they need to win back-to-back matches on their longest road trip of the year if they plan to make it into the tournament. They are going first to Tennessee Tech, which is in Cookeville, Tenn. To put it into perspective, Cookeville is about 80 miles East of Nashville.

From Cookeville they will travel to Jacksonville, Ala. for a match with Jacksonville State, which if both the Panthers and Tennessee State win on Friday, would be the granddaddy of all do-or-die scenarios: one match to get into the OVC tournament. Win and they’re in, lose and they’re out.

With this task ahead of them, the Panthers need to stay focused, and take things one match, one set, and one point at a time. If they don’t, they could get ahead of themselves and be headed to a long off-season faster than you can say “point, set, and match.”

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