Otahks suffer rare OVC loss to EIU

Eastern snaps Southeast's 21-match winning streak against OVC teams at home.

By Marty Mishow ~ Southeast Missourian

An ability to finish the final two games strong allowed Eastern Illinois to hand Southeast Missouri State University a rare Ohio Valley Conference volleyball defeat at Houck Field House.

The Panthers pulled away down the stretch in the last two games Wednesday night to knock off the Otahkians 21-30, 30-24, 30-24, 30-25 in front of 227 fans.

Southeast, which last Sunday had an overall 36-match home winning streak snapped by Southwest Missouri, saw its 21-match OVC home victory string end Wednesday.

EIU (9-4, 4-1 OVC) moved ahead of defending champion Southeast (7-8, 4-2) into first place in the tight conference standings. The Otahkians dipped into a fourth-place tie, just behind Morehead State and Eastern Kentucky (both 5-2).

"I feel very good about it," said EIU coach Brenda Winkeler. "Any time you win here, you have to feel ecstatic, not just good."

After losing her top two hitters from last year, and with an extremely young team that features just one senior, Southeast coach Cindy Gannon knew the Otahkians would not simply roll through the OVC as they had done the previous two seasons while dropping just one league match.

"I figured it would be a tight race this year," Gannon said. "We're young and I can take that, but we're just not working well together. We have to do a better job with that.

"But I still think we have a good volleyball team and I still have confidence in us."

Southeast led from start to finish and rolled in the first game, which caused Winkeler to adjust her strategy.

"We changed some things tactically," she said.

EIU then led all the way to cruise in the second game, which is when things got interesting.

The Otahkians led 19-18 in game three, but the Panthers scored the next three points to go ahead for good and closed with a 12-5 run.

In game four, things were again tight heading down the stretch but EIU pulled away from an 18-18 tie and finished with a 12-7 burst.

"I thought we played extremely well as a team," Winkeler said.

Carrie Stevens powered home 19 kills for the Panthers and Leslie Prezkwas added 13.

For Southeast, Emily Johnson had 20 kills and 12 digs while Bobbi Carlile had 17 kills and 16 digs. Jessica Haupt added 13 kills. Suzanne Gundlach recorded 20 digs and Sarah Frost had 13. Emily Scannell dished out 53 assists.