Box Score Photo Gallery (
Sandy King)
CHARLESTON, Ill. – Eastern Illinois volleyball had their recent nine-match home win streak snapped by visiting Belmont on Saturday (Oct. 4) afternoon (11-25, 27-25, 19-25, 25-23, 15-11) in Ohio Valley Conference action. Ironically the Bruins were the last team to defeat the Panthers on their home court, as Belmont also won a five-set thriller late in 2012.
Panthers fall to 7-10 overall and 1-3 in league play, while the Bruins improved to 7-10 and sport a 3-1 OVC tally.
Three different EIU hitters notched double-digit kills, led by junior
Chelsea Lee's 20 put-downs and .311 attack, while classmate
Abby Saalfrank registered her 10th career double-double with 18 kills and 14 digs of her own.
Redshirt freshman
Josie Winner rounded out the EIU offense with 11 kills and a game-best .429 attack clip.
Freshman
Allie Hueston tallied nine kills and a team-best four blocks in the loss, as junior libero
Stephanie Wallace led five Panthers in double-digit digs with 17. Defense and serving specialist seniors
Dakota Springer and
Kelsey Brooke upped 16 and 15 Belmont attacks, respectively.
Junior setter
Marah Bradbury dished out 56 assists and secured 11 digs for her 27th all-time duo-duo performance, while she also fired off two unreturnable serves.
Team-wise, the Panthers led the visitors in nearly every stat category, including kills (66-to-53), attack (.200-to-.122), assists (63-to-51), digs (81-to-71), and points (79.0-to-71.5). Both squads finished with four aces, while the Bruins led the blocking game via a 14.5-to-9.0 advantage.
EIU came out on fire in the first as the Panthers had zero miscues for a .464 attack, while limiting the Bruins to a negative .062 for the easy 25-11 victory. The visitors countered with their own tough 27-25 second set win, as nearly squad hit all the well in that frame as the teams combined for 12 ties and lead changes.
The third set went back to EIU as the host squad led nearly start-to-finish for the 25-19 win. Unfortunately the momentum switched to Belmont as the Bruins got the late run to extend the match for the 25-23 fourth set victory. They then took the early lead in the deciding set and rode out the victory by hitting .222 to just .038 for EIU in that set, although the Panthers did make a late run to force a Belmont break in the action.
The victors had two players with ten plus kills, as freshman Arianna Person led her squad with 11 kills but also had 11 errors for a zero attack. She finished with four blocks as well. Senior Alex Martin followed with ten put-downs and led the way at the net with eight blocks. Newcomer Brie Lewis came in late and made an impact with eight kills.
With the win, Belmont has now won all four meetings between the two squads on the volleyball court as the Bruins joined the league ranks just prior to the 2012 campaign.
The Eastern homestand continues next weekend as the Panthers are set to host Murray State and Austin Peay at 7 p.m. and 2 p.m. on Friday (Oct. 10) and Saturday (Oct. 11), respectively.
... for more info, contact Bart Rettberg, Asst. SID
