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RICHMOND, Ky. – Aggressive play on both sides of the ball stretched the Eastern Kentucky University volleyball team's winning streak to four games with a four-set victory over Tennessee State, on Senior Day, Saturday afternoon at McBrayer Arena.
 
The Colonels won by scores of 23-25, 25-16, 25-13 and 25-16.
 
After dropping a marathon of a first set that featured 11 tie scores and five lead changes, 25-23, EKU rallied to take the final three sets in convincing fashion. The second frame became a set of runs as Eastern Kentucky notched four unanswered points that began on a block from senior Ciera Koons and ended on a kill from Kaylin Johnson to pull ahead three, 10-7, and force a Tennessee State timeout. Rachel Henderson and Sydney Swann came up with kills as the Tigers responded with a 5-0 run of their own to take the lead, 12-10. The Colonels created two more 6-0 runs down the stretch to seal the set, 25-16.
 
Eastern Kentucky came out of the locker room hot to open the third stanza, outscoring TSU 14-3. The Colonels held the Tigers to just 10 more points the rest of the set. Back-to-back Tennessee State attack errors ended the set in favor of Eastern, 25-13.
 
In the final set TSU found itself in a 15-9 hole, but after an EKU attack error the Tigers went on to take the next three points to draw within two, 15-13. Senior Celina Sanks answered with a putaway from Cassie Knutson followed by kills from Johnson and two from Lauren Kolenik to give the Colonels a 21-13 advantage. Tennessee State went on to score three more times, but the lead proved insurmountable as Knutson came up with back-to-back kills to end the match, 25-16.
 
Tennessee State came into the matchup hitting .163 on the year, but Eastern Kentucky held the Tigers to a .032 percentage after forcing two negative sets and a final set of .000.
 
The Colonels out-blocked TSU 10-2, carried by Johnson and Koons who chipped in five apiece.
 
Kolenik had a career day matching her high in blocks (4) and leading all players with a career-high 14 kills.
 
Knutson contributed her second triple-double of the weekend and fourth of the year with 11 kills, 22 assists and 10 digs while Sanks provided another double-double with 10 kills and 13 digs.
 
Chloe Rojas led all players with 28 digs.
 
Samantha Beltran poured in a 15 assist, 14 dig double-double for the Tigers while Katora Roberts led TSU in putaways with eight.
 
The win improves the Colonels to 11-15 (9-3 Ohio Valley Conference) while the Tigers fall to 6-20 (2-10 OVC).
 
EKU will be back in action next weekend for the first two games of its final road swing at Jacksonville State on November 3 followed by Tennessee Tech on November 4.