Austin Peay State University’s volleyball team rallied from a 2-1 set deficit to defeat Murray State in five sets (21-25, 25-23, 20-25, 25-21, 15-10) to win the 2017 Ohio Valley Conference Volleyball Championship, Saturday afternoon in front of a raucous 1,034 fans at the Winfield Dunn Center. Austin Peay (30-5), which won its third OVC tournament title, claims the OVC’s automatic qualifying spot in the 2017 NCAA Division I Volleyball Championship. The NCAA Volleyball Championship Selection Show will be held at 8 p.m. (CT), Sunday, Nov. 26 and will be aired on ESPNU.
The Governors had their hands full with the Racers through the first four sets. Murray Sate would win the first and third frames but had to hold off late Austin Peay charges in each frame. Meanwhile, the Govs won the second and fourth sets in never-rattling fashion, taking a lead for good at 22-21 in the second and at 18-17 in the fourth then holding off the Racers.
In the fifth, the teams traded the first four points before the Govs got back-to-back kills from freshman Brooke Moore and junior Kaylee Taff for a 4-2 lead. After another exchange of points, Austin Peay gained control with four straight points as junior Cecily Gable and redshirt junior Christina White posted back-to-back kills in front of back-to-back Racers errors for a 9-4 lead that proved too much for Murray State to overcome. Taff would put down a kill to end the match and secure the tournament title.
Redshirt junior Christina White led the Govs with a career-high 20 kills, including five in a match-leveling fourth set victory. Freshman Brooke Moore, who was named the tournament’s “Most Valuable Player” finished with 15 kills – she posted seven kills and a .700 attack percentage in the final two sets. Juniors Kaylee Taff and Cecily Gable added 12 and 11 kills, respectively in the win.
Rachel Holthaus and Katirah Johnson each had 14 kills to lead Murray State. Rachel Guistino and Dacia Brown had 13 and 10 kills each.
(Courtesy APSU Athletics)