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UNIVERSITY PARK, Penn. – Eastern Illinois volleyball ended the non-league portion of the 2014 schedule on Saturday (Sep. 20) as the Panthers split final day play of the Penn State Alumni Classic with a five-set marathon win over DePaul, before falling in four frames to Illinois-Chicago.

With the split, the Panthers finish the pre-Ohio Valley Conference slate with a 6-7 overall mark as EIU battled past the Blue Demons via scores of 17-25, 25-22, 23-25, 25-15, 17-15, but came up just short against the Flames off a 25-21, 25-23, 21-25, 25-17 loss.

In the opener with DePaul, a couple of players earned career marks as junior Chelsea Lee paced all players on the court with a new career-high 28 kills, while connecting on a .407 attack and securing 29.5 points.  Following her fine weekend play, Lee would end up representing all Panthers on the All-Tournament squad.

Meanwhile, her classmate Stephanie Wallace, who came into the match needing just 11 additional digs to add her name to the EIU 1,000-Dig Club, tallied a new all-time best performance with 31 ups to become the 26th player in school history to have 1,000+ digs in their career.

Fellow juniors Kayla Nesbitt and Abby Saalfrank chipped in 13 additional kills, while Saalfrank added 16 digs for a double-double, and also roofed five blocks.

Redshirt freshman Josie Winner and senior Kelsey Roggemann tied with net defense honors as each registered six blocks in the win.

Meeting for the 26th time in their long-time series history, the matchup featured 21 ties and 13 lead changes as EIU led DePaul (2-9) in kills, attack, assists, aces, digs and points, while the Blue Demons finished ahead of the Panthers in the blocking game.  Eastern now leads their instate rivals in the all-time series, 20-6.

In the nightcap loss to the Flames, Lee once again led the Panther offense with 17 kills off a .286 attack, while Saalfrank earned 15 put-downs of her own.

Wallace again paced all players on the court with 24 additional digs to now own 1,030 all-time digs in a Panther uniform to rank No. 23 in the EIU record books.

EIU and UIC (6-9) met for the 33rd time on the volleyball court as the contest had 11 ties and four lead changes, while the Flames lead Eastern in nearly every statistical, while both squads finished with identical 55 digs.

Panthers will now begin to focus on Ohio Valley Conference play during the rest of the season, as EIU is set travel to Tennessee Tech and Jacksonville State next Friday and Saturday, respectively.  Eastern has been picked to finish second in the league during the preseason poll by OVC coaches and SIDs.

FINAL TEAM STANDINGS
Penn State ... 4-0
Illinois-Chicago ... 2-1
East Carolina ... 2-2
Eastern Illinois ... 1-3
DePaul ... 0-3

PSU CLASSIC ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM
MVP - Aiyana Whitney, PSU
Dominique Gonzalez, PSU
Stephenee Yancy, UIC
Sydney Darden, ECU
Chelsea Lee, EIU
Randi Leath, DePaul

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