Box Score

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- Reynae Hutchinson earned her fourth consecutive kill-dig double-double as Eastern Illinois volleyball earned a four-set win (25-23, 19-25, 25-19, 25-20) at Ohio Valley Conference east division foe Tennessee Tech on Saturday afternoon.

Hutchinson nailed a player-high 20 kills and added 10 digs to nab her 25th career duo-duo performance, and ninth of her junior campaign, while hitting .333 in the contest.

Classmate Stephanie Arnold added 12 put-a-ways and tied both Hutchinson and senior Alison Berens with four blocks apiece.  Freshman Abby Saalfrank finished with an additional 10 kills.

The Panthers have now won six of their last seven OVC contests to improve to an even 7-7 league mark and sit in sixth place in the conference standings as EIU continues a strong late-season push to be one of eight squads to advance to the league championship.  Eastern also moves to 10-19 overall.

Newcomer Marah Bradbury dished out a high of 51 assists and drilled six kills with zero errors for a nice .545 clip. 

Freshman libero Stephanie Wallace upped 17 Golden Eagle attacks to earn top Panther dig numbers, as sophomore Dakota Springer once again improved on her career dig numbers with 15 passes.

Team-wise, the Panthers led TTU (3-23/1-13) in kills (64-to-45), attacks (147-to-132), attack (.252-to-.205), assists (58-to-42), digs (63-to-49), and points (77.0-to-64.0).  The Golden Eagles did win the serve and blocking games with respective advantages of five-to-four and 14-to-nine.

Kelsey Gray and Ellen Conti paced the TTU offense behind respective 11 and 10 kill totals, with Gray hitting .381 for the match and tying Elise Robertson the net defense behind six blocks each.  Libero Courtney Smith finished with 18 digs, to lead all players on the court.

Meeting for the 37th time, the match featured 27 ties and 13 lead changes, as the Panthers now own a 23-14 lead over the Golden Eagles, while also enjoying a three-match win streak in the all-time series.

Panthers finished up the regular-season road portion of the 2012 slate, as EIU returns home this coming week to host both SIU Edwardsville and OVC newcomer Belmont on Wednesday (Nov. 7) and Friday (Nov. 9), with respective first serves set for 7 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. at Lantz Arena.

Eastern will honor three seniors -- Alison Berens, Emily Franklin and Kat Gosewisch -- prior to the home finale against the Bruins of Belmont next Friday evening.

... for more info, contact Bart Rettberg, Asst. SID