MOREHEAD, Ky. -- It took 19 years, but Austin Peay State University's volleyball team clinched the program's second-ever Ohio Valley Conference Volleyball Championship with a four-set (23-25, 25-14, 25-21, 25-14) victory against regular-season champion Morehead State, Saturday, at Wetherby Gymnasium.

Austin Peay (26-6), which won its only previous tournament title in 1991, receives the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Volleyball Championship that begins Dec. 2. It will be the Lady Govs first NCAA Tournament appearance

Sophomore Nikki Doyle was named the tournament's "Most Valuable Player" after recording 17 kills against Morehead State and finishing with 34 kills and a .321 attack percentage in the tournament.

"Nikki has done the most incredible job this year," said Lady Govs head coach Haley Janicek. "She's struggled a lot with an injury and she came out this year with the will to win and the will to get better. She hasn't been in high-pressure situations a lot, she's very young - but to see her succeed like this in an environment like this is incredible."

"I've never experienced this before in my life, said Doyle. "We had such a hard-working team. We wanted to win this it for each other, the coach and the program. It was just the energy coming from all sides that helped us win tonight."

Senior Sarah Alisaleh and junior Ilyanna Hernandez also were named to the all-tournament team. Alisaleh recorded 102 sets in the two championship matches while Hernandez finished with 26 kills, including 16 in the title match.

 "Sarah did an incredible job of splitting up the offense," Janicek said. "She ran a really effective system and spread the offense really well for our outsides to succeed. In an outside-dominated match our outsides (Doyle and Hernandez) really pulled through for us."

After winning the second set by an impressive 25-14 margin, Austin Peay (26-6) found itself down five points, 17-12, in the third set and struggling to regain that momentum. Yet the Lady Govs mounted a match-changing 13-4 run the set's remainder. Six different Austin Peay hitters recorded a kill during the run, Hernandez' kill giving APSU its first lead since early in the match and senior Taylor Skinner sealed the victory with a kill.

Austin Peay would lead the fourth set wire-to-wire, beginning with the set's first four points. Another 5-1 run drained the drama out of the set, pushing the lead to 9-2 and it would not get closer than that the rest of the way.

Morehead State (25-8), which lost in the championship match for a second consecutive year, won a see-saw first set that saw each team piece together impressive scoring runs. The Lady Govs built a six-point, 14-8, lead with a 8-2 run but could not hold on. The Eagles slowly but surely reeled the momentum back into their favor, finally tying the set at 22-22. A pair of Austin Peay attack errors - they committed five in the set - handed the opener to MSU, 25-23.

"To be honest the entire match is a blur," said Janicek. "We've talked all season long about getting one percent better. We made a bunch of errors in the first set - a few too many errors for us to play consistent volleyball. That second and third set we nailed things down and got better the rest of the way. Most importantly we held our composure when things got rough on the court."

"We have had this goal in mind since we lost last year," said Alisaleh. "We worked hard every day in practice with the mindset 'We're not going to let what happened last year happen again this year.' We all came together in the tournament and did what it took to win."

Austin Peay now prepares for a 2 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 27 contest at Louisville. The Cardinals advanced to the Big East Tournament Championship match for the sixth consecutive season with a four-set victory against Marquette, Saturday.

- AP -