The first two rounds of the OVC Tournament are in the books, and the field is set for the semifinals Friday.

The two seed Murray State will face Eastern, the three seed, at 4 p.m. on Friday.

At 7 p.m., top-seeded Tennessee-Martin will play the four seed Eastern Kentucky. The winners will meet in the championship match on Sunday at 2 p.m.

Tennessee-Martin and Murray State have not played a tournament game yet after receiving a bye for the first two rounds.

For the first time since 2014, Murray State is not the top seed. They went 7-3 in conference play and 11-4-1 overall.

Tennessee-Martin posted the best OVC record, 9-0-1, since Murray State went 10-0 back in 2015. Their draw came against Eastern on Sept. 30.

Both Eastern and Eastern Kentucky are coming off of wins in penalty kick shootouts.

Eastern won their shootout 3-2 against Southeast Missouri on Sunday after being tied 1-1 after regulation.

The Panthers made their final three shots to win the shootout, with Itxaso Aguero making the game-winner.

Eastern Kentucky made their first four penalty kicks against Southern Illinois Edwardsville, who made three of their first four. Erin Torrence missed the clinching kick for Eastern Kentucky, giving Southern a chance to tie the shootout.

But Eastern Kentucky’s goalkeeper, Zoe Aguiere, made the game-ending save.

The semifinal matchups will both feature the lower-seeded team looking to avenge regular season losses to the higher-seeded teams.

Eastern Kentucky suffered its worst conference loss of the season to Tennessee-Martin on Oct. 19. The Colonels went ahead 1-0 in the 23rd minute of the match, but then the Skyhawks scored three second-half goals in just over two minutes to pick up a 3-1 victory.

Eastern hosted Murray State on Sept. 21, and much like Eastern Kentucky, jumped out to a 1-0 lead early on.

Kate Olson scored her only goal of the season for the Panthers in the 4th minute, but Murray State answered ten minutes later. Marley Hall of the Racers netted the game-winning goal in the 63rd minute as Murray State won 2-1.

Four of the OVC’s top five goal scorers will play in the semifinals, as will three of its top five goalkeepers.

The matches this weekend will also be hard-pressed to surpass the dramatic matches last weekend.

Each of the four matches in the first two rounds reached overtime, and three were decided by shootouts. Only five goals were scored in these matches, excluding the shootouts.

The goal scoring may increase this weekend, as Tennessee-Martin and Murray State were the top two offenses in the OVC this season.

Adam Tumino can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected]