Eastern records milestone 700th win Tuesday over Marshall

Eastern's volleyball team defeated Marshall University Tuesday night at McBrayer Arena by a score of 3-0 to earn its 700th victory in the history of the program."EKU has a great volleyball history, and I'm humbled that we could be a part of it," coach Lori Duncan said. "This is just the beginning of what I hope is an era of where we continue the tradition of success and continue to build on it."

The Colonels (5-1) have won five straight matches and have played with little rest since their season opening loss to Kentucky.

"It's a big deal to win five straight in a way because it gets our confidence and enthusiasm up for moments that we're going to have to dig deep and get through adversity," Duncan said. "It's great that we do well now, but it's not nearly as important as doing well when the OVC part of the season starts."

Eastern's lone Senior Lesley Aldridge earned herself another double-double in the match with 14 kills and 14 digs. It is her sixth double-double in six matches.

"Lesley had a big game," Duncan said.

Eastern outhit the Thundering Herd .237 to .176 and sent Marshall traveling back to Huntington W. Va., with a 2-3 record.

"I was extremely pleased with the effort and conditioning level that our kids brought to the game," Duncan said. "We were very explosive, and we jumped on Marshall from the beginning, and we knew it was going to be a big battle the whole way through."

Freshman Brittany Nobilio had a match-high 17 digs.

"Brittany has made a tremendous amount of difference: she's dug a heck of a lot of balls this season," Duncan said.

Duncan was very pleased with her team's effort Tuesday night against Marshall.

"It was a great team effort," Duncan said. "All of our kids played well."

Before its milestone 700th victory Tuesday, Eastern's volleyball team returned from Pittsburgh the previous weekend after going a perfect 4-0 in the Duquesne/Robert Morris invitational and winning the tournament.

Eastern lost their season opening game to the University of Kentucky.

"We were out of sync the entire match against UK," Duncan said. "When you have one person struggling, you can make some changes. With two people struggling it's hard to make changes. We just did things we don't normally do."

Eastern opened play on Friday with victories over Robert Morris and Akron, and on Saturday the Colonels faced Duquesne and Georgia State.

Eastern defeated Duquesne Saturday in its first match by a score of 3-1 and defeated Georgia State 2-2 in its second match to capture the tournament title.

"What we did against Kentucky was a poor start, but we immediately responded to that," Duncan said. "Every team we played in this tournament had fresh legs."

Saturday against Duquesne could have been called the Liz Guard show. Guard recorded a match-high 20 kills, a .459 hitting percentage, and six blocks.

Aldridge also had an outstanding match against the Dukes. Along with 23 digs, her 18 kills pushed her past the 900 mark for her career and into fifth place on the Eastern's all-time list.

The Colonels final match on Saturday had them squaring off with Georgia State University. In a hard-fought 3-2 win, Eastern captured the tournament title and inked some impressive statistics as well.

Kelly Jennings had a career-high 67 assist; Aldridge had 26 kills and 21 digs earning her another double-double, her fifth in as many matches.

"I'm most impressed with not only that we won the tournament, but we played some back to back matches that were long matches," Duncan said. "Our kids finished, and that was one of the things we felt we had to work on."

Aldridge was named tournament most valuable player, and she was named Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Week.

Nobilio earned defensive player of the week honors in her first weekend of college play.

This weekend, Eastern will host the Nike/Comfort Suites Classic at Alumni Coliseum. East Tennessee State, Lipscomb and Evansville will participate in the tournament.

"We're just going to come out and take our opponents one at a time," Duncan said.

Eastern's first match will be at 7 p.m., on Friday against the Buccaneers of East Tennessee State.

"If we can stay healthy and build on success, I think it will lead to good things," Duncan said. "Every time we take the floor, it's an opportunity to build on what we've started."



Reach Brandon or Todd at

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