CLARKSVILLE – The first of back-to-back home tournaments to wrap up the regular season and Senior Day are on deck for the Austin Peay State University beach volleyball team when it hosts Eastern Kentucky, Jacksonville State, and UT Martin for the Govs Beach Bash, Friday and Saturday, at the Govs Beach Volleyball Complex.
Austin Peay (12-9) opens the weekend with a 10 a.m., Friday match against Jacksonville State before playing a 4 p.m. match against Eastern Kentucky later that day. The Governors will honor seniors Brooke Moore, Caroline Waite, and Demi McInnis prior to the match against Eastern Kentucky.
On Saturday, Austin Peay will play an 11 a.m. match against UT Martin and then will play again at 1 p.m. if it is the No. 3 or No. 4 team in the tournament standings or at 3 p.m. if it is the No. 1 or No. 2 team.
The Governors are 9-2 all-time against Jacksonville State and have won both of their matches against the Gamecocks by a score of 4-1 this season. The Govs also picked up a 4-1 win in their lone contest with Eastern Kentucky this season and are a perfect 4-0 all-time against the Colonels on the sand.
UT Martin knocked off Austin Peay, 4-1, in the last meeting between the two teams atop the Ohio Valley Conference standings. The Governors are 12-3 all-time against the Skyhawks, but are 1-1 this season with the loss coming in conference action, which gives UT Martin a one-game lead in the OVC standings with four conference matches left to play.
Austin Peay is led by the back-to-back OVC Beach Pair of the Week, Marlayna Bullington and Kelsey Mead, who went 4-2 last week and are a team-leading 14-7 this season. Bullington and Mead are 13-7 in the No. 1 position this season and are 1-0 when they appear on the No. 2 line.
Moore and Mikayla Powell are next in line for the Governors with a 13-8 record with all of their wins coming at the No. 2 position. Last week, Moore picked up her 54th career win and tied Jenna Panning for the most wins in program history, she can move atop the record book with just a single win this weekend.
Playing in the No. 3 position, McInnis and Tegan Seyring have posted a 9-8 mark for the Govs this season. In the No. 4 position, the duo of Waite and Janvier Buggs have seen most of the action as of late and have a 4-3 record in the No. 4 spot. Waite and Buggs enter the weekend on a team-leading two-match winning streak and also have a 5-2 mark at the No. 5 spot.
Aside from the Waite-Buggs tandem, the duo of Maggie Keenan and Morgan Rutledge has had the most success at the No. 5 position this season with a 3-1 record. Keenan and Rutledge also won their only appearance on the No. 4 line this season and are 2-0 when playing in the extension match.
After this weekend's event, the Governors will host the OVC Weekend at Austin Peay, April 22-23, wrapping up the regular season with four conference matches. After the regular-season finale, the Govs will be back in action at the OVC Beach Volleyball Championship, April 28-30, hosted by Morehead State at the Fazoli's Breadstick Beach in Morehead, Kentucky.
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