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MOREHEAD, Ky. -- Owning the OVC's longest winning streak currently, Morehead State Volleyball will take the bus northwest this weekend to battle Eastern Illinois in a pair of conference clashes.

After dropping their opening two league matches to Austin Peay, the Eagles have reeled off seven straight victories to move into third place in the OVC standings with an 11-9 overall mark. The Panthers were looking solid with a 7-1 start but have since lost 11 straight, including all nine OVC matchups.

Friday's 4 p.m. ET match will air on ESPN+. Due to other sport conflicts at EIU on Saturday, no video stream of that 1 p.m. match will be available.

2021 RECORDS
MOR: 11-9 (7-2 OVC) | EIU: 7-12 (0-9 OVC)

SERIES RECORD
Morehead State leads 23-19 | MOR has won 3 straight | Last Meeting (2/18/21 - MOR won 3-0 in Charleston, Ill.)

NOTABLE

- Morehead State has won three straight in the series and six of the last seven. Taking it even further back, the Eagles have claimed the win in 17 of the last 20 matchups between the Panthers since 2002. Overall, MSU leads 23-19, but when EIU joined the conference in 1996-97, it won nine of the first 11 matches versus the Eagles.

- The Eagles' seven-match winning streak marks the second straight season with a success streak of 7+. In the spring 2021 season, MSU opened with 14 consecutive victories.

- Grad student Olivia Lohmeier continues to climb up the career kills leaderboard at MSU and in the OVC. She moved into second place at MSU last weekend with 1,820 career spikes now and sits in fifth place in OVC history. Lohmeier needs just 78 more kills to pass former three-time OVC Player of the Year Abbey Breit (Jacksonville State 2004-07) in third place at 1,898 and 90 to overtake Jennifer James (Eastern Kentucky 1988-91) for second place. Lohmeier needs 180 to become just the third place in OVC history with 2,000 career kills, including the record holder and MSU legend Lauren Mackey-Rust who pounded down 2,223 from 1995-98.

- In 130 career matches played, Olivia Lohmeier has reached double-digit kills in 105 of them, including a stretch of 32 straight from 2019 until the second match of this season versus Pepperdine.

- Junior libero Allison Whitten won her first career OVC Defensive Player of the Week honor this past week. She averaged more than 6.0 digs per set against UT Martin. Whitten is up to 1,617 career digs and needs 57 more to move to seventh place in program history. She also needs just 67 more to make it to sixth place on the MSU career digs list. 

- Whitten has seven 20+ dig totals in 2021, including a career-high 40 against Murray State on Oct. 1. That total was the third-best single-match dig output in program history.

- In OVC matches only, Morehead State ranks FIRST in the conference with 16.72 digs per set.

- Freshman middle McKenzee Wagener has been on a tear lately with net defense. She has 43 total blocks in the previous seven matches, including nine twice (versus Tennessee Tech and Murray State). In just 39 career matches, Wagener has turned back 146 total blocks. Also, in those 39 matches, she has only been held without a block in three of them. In fact, Wagener now ranks FIRST in the OVC in individual total blocks with 85.0.

- Freshman right-side Maycie Welborn has come into her own in the last three weeks with 49 kills and a .277 attack efficiency in the last five matches. Overall, she trails only sophomore teammate Irene Wogenstahl for the team-high in hitting percentage at .231.

- Morehead State is the only team in the OVC with two players among the league's top five in kills per set overall. Olivia Lohmeier ranks second at 4.09, while teammate Abby Hulsman is fifth at 3.37.