Morehead State remains winless

Blake Nash, Staff Reporter

A school record was broken by the Morehead State volleyball team last weekend. The 2013 Ohio Valley Conference champions dropped matches to Dayton, Tennessee Tech and Jacksonville State to set up their first 0-22 start in school history.

The Eagles have been a powerhouse the last four years, going 67-3 in OVC play. Their season ended at the NCAA national tournament last year against the University of Illinois. No other Division I program had won 96 percent of its conference matches during that stretch.

The Eagles have faced a number of bigger schools during the non-conference season including Louisville, Arizona State, Notre Dame and Purdue. Of those four matches, Notre Dame was the closest, with the Eagles falling to the Fighting Irish in five sets.

This year’s roster consists of nine players, who’ve had one year of collegiate experience, including three seniors in Colbey Cameron, Laura McDermott and Alex Fitzmorris. Those three seniors were named to the preseason All-OVC team.

The rest of the roster consists of two juniors, four sophomores and three freshmen. They will return to action this weekend in rematches with Tennessee Tech and Jacksonville State.

Murray State races
to first place in conference

The Murray State Racers went unbeaten last weekend, following victories over the Tennessee State Tigers and Belmont Bruins. The Racers, led by attacker Scottie Ingram, shut out both those opponents, upping their record to 16-4 overall and 7-1.

Ingram picked up a double-double against Belmont, recording 22 kills and 10 digs, while fellow sophomore Ellie Lorenz led the Racers in digs with 20.

Lorenz followed that up with 20 more digs against the Tigers, while Ingram 11 kills and seven digs, in the victory. Junior Sam Bedard dished out 72 assists to go with 22 digs and eight kills over the two matches, including a double-double of 39 assists and 15 digs versus Belmont.

Those three swept the OVC Players of the Week podium, which Ingram has become familiar with on a week-to-week basis. She’s been named the offensive player of the week for the last three weeks

This was Lorenz’s second time being named the defensive player of the week, while Bedard picked up her third OVC setter of the week award this season.

The Racers will host Southern Illinois-Edwardsville and Eastern next weekend. They defeated both those teams in four sets on the road two weeks ago.

Eastern’s next opponents

Coming of a weekend split, Eastern will take to the road this weekend, when they travel to Austin Peay and Murray State.

The Panthers faced those teams two weeks ago at home, and were defeated by the Racers in four sets, but returned the next day to defeat the Governors.

The Governors went 1-3 during that road trip with their only win coming against Tennessee State. Senior Jada Stotts made another bid for OVC player of the week, recording a double-double in each match. The Hoffman Estates native led her team with 12 kills and 14 digs, and followed that up with 16 kills, 10 digs and two blocks, in a four-set loss to Belmont.

She recorded a double-double in her last match against the Panthers with 17 kills and 16 digs.

As mentioned earlier, the Racers have been the OVC’s hottest team, having won five in a row, and eight of their last nine.

In their last meeting with Eastern, the Racers rebounded from a first set defeat, to sweep the next three games and the match, for the victory.

Blake Nash can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].