By Mike Lehman, TTU Sports Information
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – The Tennessee Tech beach volleyball team embarks on its second-ever appearance at the Ohio Valley Conference Championships, making the trip to Morehead, Ky. to compete in the league's annual postseason event starting Thursday morning at Giovanni's Breadstick Beach.
Ranked as the No. 5 seed for the tournament, the Golden Eagles will square off with No. 4 and host Morehead State in a 9:00 a.m. CT match-up to officially open the event. A Tech victory would result in another match on Thursday afternoon, a 1:00 p.m. affair with regular-season champion and No. 1 seed UT Martin.
If the purple and gold were to fall to the Eagles, they would play their second dual of the tournament Friday morning in an 11:00 a.m. tilt against a possibility of three different teams. The OVC Tournament uses a double-elimination format until the Championship Match, with a "Winner Take All" dual set for Saturday at 11:00 a.m. Every match of the OVC Tournament is slated to be streamed live on ESPN+.
"We're looking forward to opening up the OVC Tournament against Morehead," Tech head coach Zach Weinberg said. "We've played them four times in program history and all four duals have finished 3-2, with each team winning twice, so I'm not sure there's a more competitive match-up that a fan could ask for to start this league championship. I like the way we match up with them, but we know that they are going to be incredibly tough on their home sand, so we need to come ready to play or they will make us pay. The double-elimination format of the tournament is exciting, but we're focusing on playing one match at a time and staying in Morehead as long as we can."
Tech split its season series with Morehead State, taking on the Eagles in a pair of duals in Cookeville at the end of March. The Golden Eagles earned an incredibly tight, 3-2 victory in the first meeting on Mar. 29 while Morehead bounced back to eke out a 3-2 win in another ultra-close battle on Mar. 30. Unbelievably, each and every dual took the full three sets to decide in both tilts, a whopping 10 bouts going down to the very end to determine a winner.
With at least two victories over the weekend, the Golden Eagles can exceed last year's win total of eight, the program's inaugural campaign. Two triumphs would also match Tech's effort in last year's OVC Tournament, as the purple and gold bested both Lindenwood and Eastern Illinois in 3-1 decisions.
Leading the way for the Cookeville crew this weekend is the No. 1 pairing of Madolyn Isringhausen and Bella Powell. The pair led the Golden Eagles with a 9-10 mark together at the No. 1 slot during the season, including a 5-4 record in OVC action. At the No. 2 spot, MK Roberts and Skylar Boom will look to build on a 5-14 showing on the year in that same position.
Competing in the No. 3 duals for the purple and gold, Brooke Amann and Aleeya Jones boasted the second-most wins on the year with a 6-13 record together. Slotted into the No. 4 pairing, Jazmine Yamilkoski and Katie DiRaimondo will take a 2-7 mark together into the event. Rounding out the lineup, McKenna Young and Ava Schubert will make up the No. 5 duo for the Golden Eagles after earning three total wins together on the year.
Photo by Jim Dillon
