There are less than two weeks left in the regular season for the volleyball teams of the OVC. 

There are no midweek matches this week, but this upcoming weekend has some matches on the schedule that can have an impact on the conference standings. 

Eastern will be traveling to play Tennessee Tech on Friday and Saturday. The Panthers will put their three-match winning streak to the test against the Golden Eagles, who are 7-7 in conference play. 

As a result of the winning streak, the Panthers climbed from last place up to eighth with a 3-11 OVC record. Southern Illinois-Edwardsville is now in ninth place at 2-12 and is on a seven-match losing streak.

Tennessee State is in last place now with a 1-13 conference record and is on an 11-match losing streak, the longest active losing streak in the OVC. 

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Morehead State with a 12-2 record in OVC play. The Eagles are currently on the longest active winning streak in the conference at 12 matches. They did not lose a match in the entire month of October.

Southeast Missouri has won its last two matches against Austin Peay, leapfrogging the Governors in the standings as a result. 

Southeast Missouri is now 11-3 and Austin Peay is 10-3. 

Two more OVC teams have records over .500. 

Tennessee-Martin is 9-5 so far and Murray State is 7-6. Both teams are coming off a loss, Tennessee-Martin to Tennessee Tech and Murray State to Belmont. 

Speaking of Tennessee Tech and Belmont, they are the only two teams in the OVC with .500 records at 7-7. 

Tennessee Tech is 2-6 in its last eight matches while Belmont is 4-4 in its last eight.

This weekend, there will be four conference matches on Friday, five on Saturday and one on Sunday. 

Belmont and Morehead State will get things started Friday at 5 p.m. as the Eagles will look to continue their winning streak into its second month.

The other three matches Friday will begin at 6 p.m. with Southern Illinois-Edwardsville taking on Tennessee State, Southeast Missouri facing Murray State and Eastern playing Tennessee Tech.   

Each of these teams will play again on Saturday, with the addition of Austin Peay and Tennessee-Martin’s first match of the weekend. 

The Governors and Skyhawks will finish up their series Sunday, the first and only Sunday match on the conference schedule. 

Statistically, Austin Peay leads the OVC in conference play this season with a .265 hitting percentage.

The Governors also lead the conference in kills per set in conference season. Eastern ranks seventh in the conference in that category, averaging 11.69 kills per set so far. 

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