OTAHKIANS IMPROVE WIN STREAK TO 1 GAME

After having their 34-match regular-season winning streak in the Ohio Valley Conference snapped by Murray State on Thursday, the Southeast Otahkian volleyball team came out in front of a Family Weekend crowd Saturday at Houck Fieldhouse ready to start another streak.

"That's what I told the girls this morning," said Southeast coach Cindy Gannon. "We're starting the record over again. It starts with one."

Consider it one down, 33 more to go for the Otahkians after their 15-2, 15-11, 15-9 OVC win over the Tennessee State Lady Tigers.

The OVC-leading Otahkians improved to 7-1 in the league and 15-5 overall. Tennessee State, mired at the bottom of the OVC, fell to 1-7 and 3-11 overall.

Southeast attacked the overmatched Lady Tigers from the start, winning the first two games comfortably 15-2, 15-11. But unlike in the loss to Murray -- when Southeast also won the first two games -- the Otahkians didn't allow Tennessee State to catch its breathe in the third game. The match lasted a little over an hour.

"Our goal was to come out and play with the consistency we lacked on Thursday night," Gannon said. "We wanted to put the loss behind us and move forward. I think we did a good job of that. We came out pretty focussed and we did a good job."

Freshman Rachelle Knapp was a force from start to finish, leading the Otahkians with 11 kills.

"Michelle's been a really bright spot as far as coming in as a freshman and taking over in the middle," said Gannon. "She's one of those players that has a good solid background and she's come in and shown she can do the job here at Southeast."

Sophomore Jackie Derwort added 10 kills and 11 digs. Freshman Krista Haukap and sophomore Angie Aschoff both collected eight kills for Southeast, which got several players involved in the easy win.

"We got some people playing time that normally don't get in," Gannon said. "Tennessee State is probably not the toughest opponent we'll face in the OVC."

The Lady Tigers, coached by former Southeast assistant David Schwepker, put up more of a fight on their own bench than against the Otahkians on the court. At one point in the match, two Tennessee State bench players got in a playful wrestling match with one player rolling off her chair.

Unlike the Lady Tigers, Southeast senior setter Tuba Meto was all business. Meto collected 40 of the Otahkians' 42 assists

Next up for the Otahkians will be a 7 p.m. non-conference game against Arkansas State on Tuesday at Houck.