By Dylan Vazzano, TTU Sports Information
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – The Tennessee Tech soccer team made it a clean sweep en route to a piece of program history Tuesday afternoon, as the Golden Eagles claimed all three Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Week awards following a big weekend that featured a pair of conference wins for the purple and gold.
The three weekly honors marks the first time in program history in which the Golden Eagles captured the trio of accolades in the same week. The league added the Goalkeeper of the Week award in 2006.
Kendall Powell secured the OVC Offensive Player of the Week honor, while Rachel Blow took home the OVC Defensive Player of the Week award and Isabelle Austin collected the OVC Goalkeeper of the Week accolade. It's the first time all year in which an OVC school picked up all three honors in the same week and it's the first occurrence for the conference since SIUE earned all three awards on Sept. 25, 2018.
Powell earned her second career OVC Offensive Player of the Week honor after scoring a combined three goals in two wins over Murray State and Jacksonville State over the weekend. The Cookeville product started her strong stretch of scoring with a pair of goals in Tech's 3-0 home victory over Murray State on Friday, Oct. 11, the Racers first conference loss of the season and only fourth regular-season OVC defeat in since 2015.
Leading 1-0, Powell padded the Tech advantage by splitting the pipes in the 16th and 84th minutes to push the TTU lead to 3-0. The 5-foot-7 junior continued her scorching offensive play with another goal on Sunday, Oct. 13 at Jacksonville State with a game-winning strike in the 34th minute of a 1-0 Tech victory. With the three goals in two matches, Powell is now the Tech leader with five scores this season.
Blow secured her first career OVC Defensive Player of the Week award after helping pace the Golden Eagles to back-to-back shutout victories against the Racers and Gamecocks. The 5-foot-7 senior did not leave the pitch at any point, tallying 180 total minutes in the pair of contests.
Not only did Blow serve as one of the key pieces in TTU's defensive puzzle that led to the consecutive clean sheets, but the Boca Raton, Fla. native also accounted for one of the most crucial moments of the weekend with her second career goal in Tech's 3-0 triumph over Murray State. Blow unwrapped the scoring against the Racers with a missile from deep that snuck inside the far post in the eighth minute Friday evening. The goal, which ended up being the game-winning strike, was Blow's first of the year.
Austin picked up her first career OVC Goalkeeper of the Week recognition after blanking both MSU and JSU over the weekend, notching a combined 13 saves in the process. In Friday's victory over the Racers, the Sylvania, Ohio product collected a career-high nine saves, highlighted by eight in the second half as Austin helped fend off a relentless Racer attack that took 14 shots in the second stanza.
The 5-foot-8 goalkeeper tied a ribbon on the weekend with four stops at Jacksonville State Sunday afternoon for her third career clean sheet. Austin currently leads the OVC with a 0.81 goals against average in conference play and her .829 save percentage during league action is good enough for second in the OVC.
Powell, Blow, Austin and the rest of the Golden Eagles have one match this week, traveling to Eastern Illinois for a Friday afternoon battle with the Panthers. First kick in Charleston is slated for 3 p.m. CT.
Photo by Thomas Corhern