A pair of familiar foes await the Eastern volleyball team on its final road trip of the season.

The Panthers will travel to play Austin Peay on Friday and Murray State on Saturday. Both teams visited Eastern on Sept. 28 and 29 on the very first weekend of conference play.

These rematches will be the second and third rematches for Eastern this season. The Panthers played Central Michigan on Sept. 6 in the Central Michigan Chippewa Invitational and Sept. 20 in the Youngstown State Red and White Invitational.

After losing the first matchup in straight sets, the Panthers bounced back to push Central Michigan to five sets in the rematch. Eastern head coach Julie Allen said she thinks the Panthers will adjust in a similar way against their conference opponents.

“We’ll start to target them and try to take away their best thing and make them do their second best option, and hopefully put a defender there, which will allow us to dig and attack back,” Allen said.

Previously against Murray State, Eastern successfully slowed down Rachel Giustino, the Racers’ best player and one of the top players in the country. The Panther defense held Giustino to 15 kills in the three-set match, which is a high number but below Giustino’s averages for the season.

The match against Austin Peay was perhaps the Panthers’ most effective offensive match of the season, but they lost the match in straight sets.

In Eastern’s last match, a 3-0 loss to Eastern Kentucky, junior Laurel Bailey broke out of a slump with 10 kills.

It was the first time Bailey reached double-digit kills since Sept. 21, and on the season, her kills per set average has dropped to 1.89 from 2.91 a season ago.

Allen said that Bailey has been working on attacking in different areas on the court, and it started to come together against Eastern Kentucky.

“She’s putting opponents kind of on edge because they don’t know what to expect from her,” Allen said. “That’s what you saw (against Eastern Kentucky), is her just taking advantage of them trying to block her one way and she hits it another. Then they block her a different way and she hits it another. She’s continuously getting better at learning the game and finding what she does great.”

As the Panthers enter their final three weeks of the season, Allen said she thinks the Panthers have done a good job playing through a season where wins have been few and far between.

“We haven’t let the record stop our growth,” Allen said. “I expect to see strong competition where we don’t let up.”

Eastern will return home for its final four conference matches, and one non-conference showdown with Chicago State, after wrapping up the road trip this weekend.

The Panthers have had more success at home in 2019, and Allen said she looks forward to not having to travel any more this season.

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