The Eastern volleyball team continued its winning streak with two wins over Southeast Missouri and Tennessee-Martin over the weekend.

Friday’s match against Southeast Missouri resulted in the Panthers’ first sweep in conference play (25-19, 25-21, 25-17).

Eastern was the dominant team all throughout the match as they out-killed the Redhawks in sets one and two and out-blocked them 11 to seven on team blocks.

The Eastern starting line-up looked a little different Friday night as the usual starters were kept on the bench. Starting for the Panthers was sophomore outside hitter Morgan Matusik, junior middle Abby Knight, freshman outside hitter Laurel Bailey, freshman libero Madison Cunningham and junior setter Taylor Smith.

Eastern coach Sam Wolinski said the line-up switch was an intentional change for her team.

“It keeps some people on their toes, and some other people got a chance to go out there and execute. They did a really good job. I think that’s just a testament of practice and the competition level that we have,” Wolinski said.

The new line-up worked in Eastern’s favor, too. Smith definitively led the team with her 12 kills, 19 assists and five block assists. Knight and Bailey solidified the rotation as Knight notched eight kills, and Bailey earned seven kills.

Cunningham stepped up in the libero position. She had a team-high 15 digs followed by sophomore defensive specialist Lindsey Powers’ 10 digs. In set three, senior middle Allie Hueston and senior outside hitter Maria Brown were dropped into the rotation. Wolinski said adding the seniors gave the team a bit of a cushion for the win.

“You get a feel for what’s going on in the match. Getting Allie (Hueston) back out there in the middle was definitely going to give us a huge push on blocking and on offensive points,” Wolinski said.

Saturday’s match against Tennessee-Martin utilized a revamped line-up in set four as well. After dropping set three, Wolinski said she let her team decide what changes to make for the final set.

“I didn’t really tell them a lot because we were talking about the line-up. We made a line-up switch that was really beneficial. Maggie (Runge) came in and did an awesome job in that fourth set,” Wolinski said. “We made that line-up switch to counteract what they did in that third set, and quite frankly, that was all on them just saying what we’re going to get back to doing what we do and we set the tone with the blocking early on.”

Adding sophomore middle Maddie Runge ended up giving Eastern the edge in set four as they defeated the Skyhawks 25-14, 25-22, 18-25, 25-15.

Smith, Brown and Bailey were offensive powerhouses as they each recorded double-digit kills at 13, 14 and 13 respectively. The Panthers tallied 59 team kills to Tennessee-Martin’s 38 kills. Blocks between the two teams were even at 13 apiece for each squad.

The nearly five dozen kills came from strategic placement across the net. The Panthers seemed to locate an open spot and executed each attack well.Wolinski said finding these open spaces on the opponent’s court comes from scouting the team and practicing.

“We work on hitting spots and doing all that in practice, and we talk about it in scout, like what’s available to our hitters. So, using that and implementing that is really, really important,” Wolinski said.

The Panthers are now 3-3 in the conference and 9-9 overall. Eastern will travel to Morehead State Friday for an evening match.

Kaitlin Cordes can be reached at 581-2812 or krcordes@eiu.edu