The Eastern volleyball team struggled in its weekend trip to the Volunteer State losing matches to Austin Peay and Tennessee Tech, and in the process the Panthers dropped from second in the Ohio Valley Conference to fourth.

Playing in Clarksville, Tenn., for the first time in nearly a month, Austin Peay enjoyed the home cooking as the Governors swept Eastern 30-28, 30-23 and 30-26 Friday night. The Governors didn’t have impressive offensive numbers in the three games with a hitting percentage right around .200, but they made up for their lack of offense with 70 digs.

“We made a few errors but they out dug us by nearly 20 and that was the difference,” Panthers’ head coach Brenda Winkeler said. “They played great defensively and we didn’t.”

Austin Peay, which played only seven players in the three games, had four (Julie Burkhalter, Sarah Schramka, Amy Walk and Elizabeth Murrieta) players with double-digit dig numbers. Leading the way was the senior middle hitter Walk who recorded 19 digs. Burkhalter and Murrieta posted 16 and 12 digs respectively.

With Austin Peay sparkling on defense, Eastern hit just .170 as a team and recorded only 42 kills. Junior outside hitter Erica Gerth had 13 of the Panthers’ kills, but hit just .178, down from her .271 OVC hitting percentage. Fellow outside hitter Sarah Niedospial had an off day as well with two kills in 12 attempts for a .083 hitting percentage. Overall, the Panthers had 19 errors on 135 attempts.

“We didn’t play well on Friday,” Winkeler said.

Unfortunately, the Panthers suffered much of the same Saturday afternoon against Tennessee Tech. The Golden Eagles defeated Eastern in four games 30-15, 30-25, 28-30 and 30-25 to end a four-game slide.

In game one, Tennessee Tech put on a hitting display with a .533 percentage. Five players hit over .500 as the Golden Eagles jumped out to an 11-5 lead and never looked back.

Tennessee Tech put the pressure on the Panthers early in game two opening the match to an early 4-0 lead. The game featured two ties, but Eastern never managed to lead and the Golden Eagles pulled away 30-25.

Eastern managed to avoid defeat in the third game with a close 30-28 win. Tennessee Tech opened up a quick lead, but the Panthers quickly tied up the game. The two teams then went back and fourth with 11 ties including one at 27. The Golden Eagles fell behind 29-28 and Gerth put the game away with a kill to cut the Tennessee Tech lead two games to one.

The fourth game resembled much of the first two with the Golden Eagles opening up a 10-4 lead. Tennessee Tech had 15 kills and 23 digs in the 30-25 win to close out the Panthers.

Eastern hit only .087 and committed 39 errors, but Winkeler did notice a few bright spots in the loss. The first was the play of sophomore middle hitter Megan Kennedy. The LaGrange native had a team-high 12 kills and hit .368.

Winkeler was also pleased with freshman middle hitter Kara Sorenson and senior Chandra Hensley who returned from an injury to play her first match in over a month.

“Megan played great, but so did Kara Sorenson who had 10 kills on the right side,” Winkeler said. “Having Chandra back is a positive because she will provide us with more depth at the outside hitter position.”

With the two losses Eastern fell to 6-14 overall and 3-3 in the OVC. The Panthers will next be action at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Lantz Arena for a match with Illinois-Chicago.