Murray State University Athletics
Murray State
Southeast Missouri
Volleyball Gets Fifth Straight Win With SEMO Shutout
10/2/2007 5:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
For the first time ever, the Murray State volleyball team has swept its regular-season series with Southeast Missouri State with shutout wins. The two teams battled Tuesday night in Racer Arena, but it was the Racers who were able to come out on top, winning 30-27, 30-22, 30-26, to take their fifth straight Ohio Valley Conference win and move within a match of first-place Morehead State and Tennessee State.
In that five-match win streak, four of those wins were shutouts, but MSU head coach David Schwepker warns not to read too much into that.
"In almost all of those games, they were very close, hard-fought games," he said. "A point here or there could have changed the outcome easily."
Murray State (8-8, 5-2 OVC) was led by senior middle hitter Tara DeMage, who had a match-high 15 kills and hit .467, with only one error in 30 attacks. Junior outside hitter Alison Mugler added 10 kills for the Racers.
Sophomore setter Cassie Chesney handed out a match-high 45 assists, and DeMage had four blocks. On defense, Mugler repelled a match-high 15 digs, while DeMage had 14, junior libero Heather Norris had 12, junior outside hitter Alyssa Groves had 11 and Chesney had 10.
Mugler, Groves, DeMage and Norris each had two aces.
Southeast Missouri (8-10, 4-4 OVC) was paced by 10 kills from Emily Hughes, who hit .450, with only one error in 20 attacks. Claire Keaton had a match-high five blocks, while Hughes and Kim Unnerstall each had three. Alyssa Aston handed out 26 assists. On defense, Molly Davis and Karleigh DeLong each had 12 digs, while Aston and Brittany Hastings each had two.
"We played hard for the entire three games," Schwepker said. "I was really happy with that. We weren't perfect, but we played hard. We are trying to play consistently, and except for our match against Austin Peay, we have played pretty consistently since our loss to Samford."
Murray State visits Tennessee Tech on Friday at 7 p.m. in the first match of a three-match road swing. The Racers go to Tennessee State on Saturday at 2 p.m., then travel to Lipscomb for a non-conference match on Tuesday.
INSIDE THE OVC
In other matches tonight, Tennessee State beat OVC co-leader Morehead State 3-1, marking the Tigers' second straight win over an OVC leader, having beaten Jacksonville State on Saturday. Tennessee Tech beat Eastern Kentucky 3-0 and Tennessee-Martin got past Eastern Illinois 3-2. Austin Peay, Jacksonville State and Samford were all idle.
Morehead State (12-6, 6-1 OVC) and Tennessee State (8-8, 6-1 OVC) share the lead in the OVC, while Jacksonville State (8-5, 5-1 OVC) fell a half-match behind. Murray State moved to within a game of the co-leaders, while Tennessee Tech (10-8, 4-3 OVC) slipped into fifth place ahead of Southeast Missouri State. Samford (8-7, 3-3 OVC) is tied with SEMO, while Austin Peay (7-11, 2-4 OVC) is in eighth place, followed by Tennessee-Martin (8-9, 2-5 OVC) is just a half-match behind APSU in ninth place. Eastern Illinois (8-9, 1-7 OVC) and Eastern Kentucky (1-16, 0-7 OVC) are fighting to earn a berth in the six-team post-season OVC Tournament.
