CHARLESTON, Ill. – As EIU was playing in their final regular-season contest and honoring the five senior Panther volleyball members, Tennessee State played spoilers to the celebrations as the Panthers dropped a four-set affair to the Tigers (22-25, 25-18, 23-25, 19-25). The Panthers finish the regular season with a 16-14 overall record (11-5 OVC) and will enter the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament next weekend as the third overall seed, with a contest against six-seed Tennessee Tech in a first round matchup.

The Panthers and Tigers kept things close to begin the first-set, but after Chelsea Lee tied the set at 5-5, the Tigers began to control the momentum. Tennessee State would lead by as many as nine points (23-14), but EIU would close the gap late. The Panthers pulled to within two scores at 22-24 in part to a pair of Tiger errors and a kill from Allie Hueston, but TSU would earn the deciding point from a kill from Ayanna Chase at 25-22.

Tennessee State would control the early stages in the second-set, until a Tiger error would tie the set at 11-11. Another kill from Lee would tie the set once more at 12-12. With the score tied at 13-13, the Panthers would use two Tiger errors to propel them for the rest of the set. A kill by Josie Winner and a TSU error gave the Panthers their biggest lead of the set at 22-17 before a TSU timeout. The Panthers would finish the set scoring three out of the last four points with the help of a Stephanie Wallace ace and back-to-back kills from Lee to take a 25-18 victory heading into the break.

Tennessee State would come out of the gates quick to start the third-set as they raced out to a 7-0 lead before the Panthers could put anything together. After a Panther error put the score at 13-5 in favor of TSU, Eastern Illinois began to find their grove. A kill by Abby Saalfrank and a TSU error gave EIU their first lead of the set at 22-21. Tennessee State use a timeout, and served as a momentum killer to the Panther run as TSU would score the last three points of the set to steal the third-set win by a score of 25-23.

The Panthers were the ones who saw the early lead to begin the fourth-set as they would take an early 5-2 advantage off of a Lee kill. Tennessee State would take a one point lead at 10-9, but Taylor Smith would quickly give the Panthers the edge at 11-10 with a kill. That would be the last lead for the Panthers however as the Tigers would go on to win the set by a score of 25-19.

Lee finished with a match-high 14 kills, while fellow senior, Saalfrank added 10. Senior Wallace led the defensive efforts with 22 digs. Smith finished the night with a double-double as she earned 39 assists to her 13 digs.

"It is good to play one of the top teams in the conference to get ready for the conference tournament. The great thing is, is that we get a chance to play again. We have the tournament on Thursday and that was our goal all along was to make the conference tournament" said Head Coach Wolinski after the game.

The five seniors that were honored for the Panthers were – Marah Bradbury, Chelsea Lee, Kayla Nesbitt, Abby Saalfrank, and Stephanie Wallace.

The OVC Tournament will be held at Murray State next weekend (Nov. 19-21) as they finished as the number-one seed overall. Belmont, Eastern Illinois, Tennessee State, Eastern Kentucky, Tennessee Tech, Morehead State, and Southeast Missouri rounded out the seeding's for the tournament.