CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. ? Austin Peay State University's volleyball team takes to the road for a pair of Ohio Valley Conference contests this weekend. The Lady Govs travel to Murray State for a 7 p.m., Friday contest, before meeting Tennessee-Martin in a 5 p.m., Saturday affair.
In its last outing, Austin Peay snapped an eight-match losing streak with a sweep of Eastern Kentucky. However, head coach Jenny Hazelwood continues to maintain her focus on improving the Lady Govs on-court performance each time out.
“We're focusing on getting better,” she said. “We played better last match and did a lot more things consistently. Both matches this weekend are going to be tough, close matches that should be a lot of fun. Murray State has played good volleyball lately and Tennessee-Martin can be a tough opponent to face.”
The Lady Govs recently finished a span of six matches in 11 days, concluding with their victory against EKU, last Saturday. Since then they have had a five-day break before this weekend's matches.
“The break is something we definitely needed,” said Hazelwood. “All six matches we just finished were conference matches which made it doubly tough. We pushed them really hard early this week, gave them Wednesday off and hope to have a good practice Thursday before we travel to Murray State.”
Individually, senior Dodi Szymska slipped into second among the league's kills leaders, averaging 4.52 kills per game, but leads the league with 429 total kills. Freshman Maegan Squibb moved into the league's top 10 in attack percentage, ranking eighth with a .292 attack percentage this season. Freshman Sarah Alisaleh leads the league in service aces, averaging 0.66 per game, and ranks fifth among the league's setters with 11.96 assists per game.
Murray State enters the weekend amid a four-team race for the regular-season title. The Racers are in third place with a 10-4 conference mark, one-game behind league-leading Jacksonville State. In the season's earlier meeting, Murray State came from behind to down Austin Peay, 3-2, and served as the starting point of the APSU losing streak. The Racers are the league's top defensive team in digs with 20.37 digs per game while the Lady Govs rank second with 19.39 digs per game.
Tennessee-Martin is tied with the Lady Govs for 10th place in the conference standings entering their weekend affair, which was moved to a 5 p.m. start due to conflicts on the UTM athletics schedule. The Lady Govs defeated the Skyhawks, 3-1, in the Lady Govs home opener earlier this season. In that match Tennessee-Martin posted 25 blocks against the Austin Peay offense and it will enter the match ranked second in the league with 2.91 blocks per game.
- AP -
