RISING UT MARTIN VOLLEYBALL SQUAD SET FOR 14TH ALL-TIME APPEARANCE IN OVC CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNAMENT

Thursday, November 21

Jacksonville, Ala.

10 a.m.

UT Martin

Murray State

Photo by: UT Martin University Relations

RISING UT MARTIN VOLLEYBALL SQUAD SET FOR 14TH ALL-TIME APPEARANCE IN OVC CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNAMENT

11/19/2019 1:29:00 PM | Volleyball

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MARTIN, Tenn. – Currently playing its best volleyball of the season is the University of Tennessee at Martin, who enters this week's Ohio Valley Conference Championship tournament as the No. 6 seed.

The Skyhawks (13-18, 9-7 OVC) begin the OVC Championship event with a quarterfinal matchup against No. 3 seed Murray State at 10 a.m. on Thursday. The three-day tournament will take place at Pete Mathews Coliseum on the campus of Jacksonville State University on Nov. 21-23.

UT Martin is 1-0 inside the Pete Mathews Coliseum in 2019, as the Skyhawks handed OVC regular season champion Jacksonville State one of its three league setbacks on Sept. 28. Although this is the fourth time that the Gamecocks have hosted the OVC Championship, this will be the first time that UT Martin will have played a postseason match in that venue.

The Skyhawks roll into the postseason as winners in eight of their last 11 league matches, overcoming a 1-4 OVC start to tally their most conference victories since 2011. UT Martin finished in a tie for fifth place, marking just the second time in the last 16 years that the Skyhawks placed in the OVC's top-five in the league standings.

A bit of history occurred during the final weekend of the regular season as UT Martin swept Eastern Illinois and SIUE on the road. Those results marked the first time that the Skyhawks posted back-to-back OVC road sweeps since Oct. 4-5, 2002. Logan Wallick (4.00 kills per set), Kenzie Hinshaw (10.17 assists per set, 3.50 digs per set) and Lucy Kaufman (5.17 digs per set) paced UT Martin over the weekend.

On the season, Justine Walker ranks 11^th nationally with 143 total blocks – leading the OVC at a 1.24 blocks per set clip. She is joined in the top-10 by Gintare Mackeviciute, who ranks ninth in the league with an 0.88 blocks per set average.

In league play, Mackeviciute's .337 hitting percentage ranks fourth in the OVC while Hinshaw's 9.86 assists per set ranks fifth. Wallick has come on strong down the stretch to rank seventh in the conference in kills (3.39 per set) and points (3.66 per set) against OVC opposition.

The Skyhawks split with Murray State during the regular season, as each team protected its home court. The Racers claimed a 25-18, 25-16, 25-16 win in Murray back on Oct. 4 before UT Martin came away with a 19-25, 25-22, 23-25, 25-22, 15-13 triumph on Nov. 9 in Skyhawk Fieldhouse. The UT Martin trio of Wallick (3.00 kills per set), Kaufman (4.25 digs per set) and Walker (1.88 blocks per set) led the way against Murray State during the regular season.

The Racers (18-10, 12-4 OVC), who defeated the Skyhawks in the 2018 quarterfinals on their way to the OVC Tournament title, won six of their last seven matches with the only loss coming to UT Martin. Rachel Giustino earned her sixth OVC Offensive Player of the Week award of the season on Monday and ranks second nationally in both kills (565, 5.33 per set) and points (616.5, 5.82 per set). Becca Fernandez, who shared the 2018 OVC Defensive Player of the Year award with former Skyhawk libero Brooke Gyori, leads the OVC with 5.05 digs per set.

All matches in the OVC Championship tournament will be streamed on ESPN+. That link - in addition to a link for live stats - can be found at the top of the webpage. For complete coverage of all matches in the tournament, visit the OVC Championship Central link at the top of the webpage.