ST. CHARLES, MO. — The Tennessee State Tiger volleyball team will travel to St. Charles, Missouri, to take on the Lindenwood University Lions in a weekend series this Friday and Saturday. This will be the first match up between the two schools as Lindenwood joined the Ohio Valley Conference this season. The Tigers will be in search of their first OVC road victory. Playing on the road is a challenge, Head Coach Donika Sutton feels another thing to overcome will be the lack of familiarity.

"That makes it harder," said Sutton. "Some of the teams in the conference, we already know their style, what to expect and their tempo. We have the opportunity to watch film, get a feel for who they are and continue to play our game."

On Tuesday, TSU fell for the first time this season at Kean Hall to the OVC's top team UT-Martin (24-26, 21-25, 25-23, 25-19, 15-11). The Tigers dropped the first two sets but rallied to force a fifth set.

The OVC leader in hitting percentage Kennedy Davis collected 16 kills and improved her league leading hitting percentage by swinging at a .500 clip.  Celestial Miller also had 16 kills and Johanna Alcantara and Aleksandra Rojecka chipped in with 11. as part of a Tiger attack that had four players with double-digit kills. Defensively, TSU had two players reach double figures in digs as Gina Rivera-Ortiz had 25 and Hadley Pride had 10.

The Matchup: Tennessee State Tigers (8-13, 2-6 OVC) at Lindenwood (6-10, 3-4 OVC)
Date/Time: Friday, October 14 || 6:00 p.m. (CST)
Date/Time: Saturday, October 15 || 2:00 p.m. (CST)
Location: Hyland Arena || St. Charles, Missouri
Watch Live: 
Live Stats     https://lindenwoodlions.com/sidearmstats/wvball/summary


SCOUTING THE TIGERS:

• Kennedy Davis was in a zone on Tuesday night. The junior from St. Louis had eight of her 16 kills in sets three and four to get her team back in the match. Davis leads the OVC in hitting percentage in overall games (.358).
• Freshman Gabrielle Johnson has been a brick wall defensively around the net. Johnson's 51 blocks and 1.82 blocks per set leads the OVC and has helped her team lead the conference in blocks (81.5) and blocks per set 2.91).
• Carla Boudal leads all conference servers with 33 aces in overall play.
• Celestial Miller has double digit kills in seven of her last nine matches.

 
SCOUTING LINDENWOOD

• The weekend series will be the only the third and fourth home games of the season. They are 1-1 at home.
• Taylor Gentemann, Jessie Seidel, Nyah Wilson and Madlyn Dement have combined for 36 of the OVC leading 48 services aces in conference play.
• Mackenzi Sifuentes is leading the OVC in hitting percentage in conference play swing at .384 on only nine errors.

               
UP NEXT:
The Tigers will be back at home when they take on SIUE on October 21 and 22.