Mastodons Take on Eagles in Mid-Week Battle

MATCH NOTES

FORT WAYNE, Ind. - The IPFW Mastodons will look to snap their current three-match losing skid on Tuesday evening, as the squad looks to improve to 2-1 against Mid-American Conference teams this season.

Opponent: Eastern Michigan Eagles (7-4)
When: Tuesday, September 17 | 7 p.m.
Where: Ypsilanti, Mich. | Convocation Center (8,824scouting the eagles

SCOUTING THE EAGLES
Eastern Michigan comes into the Tuesday night meeting riding a current four-match win streak with wins over Oakland, Bryant, Holy Cross, and Brown, with the team's last loss coming on September 7 against Iowa.

Leading the team's offense this year has been Stacey Perinar, who has 121 kills, while Paige Roback has 110. Erin Short is just four kills away from triple digits with 96, while Megan Crawshaw has 82. Alyssa Davis has given out 242 assists, with teammate Jill Briner right on her heels with 190. Perinar leads five players in double-digit service aces, led by Perinar's 13, while Davis and Briner each have a dozen.

Defensively Corynne Smith has a team-best 221 digs (5.14 per set), while Roback is also over the 100-dig plateau with 115. Kelsey Jones leads the team with 55 blocks, with Crawshaw, Short, and Perinar with 31, 29, and 24 blocks, each.

ALL-TIME SERIES

The Mastodons hold a narrow 7-6 lead in the all-time series between the two teams. The Eagles dominated the series early, winning the first five meetings - sweeping four of those - before IPFW prevailed for the first time in 2005 with a 3-0 win in Gainesville, Fla. Eastern Michigan won the revenge battle later that year, but the last six contests have all gone to IPFW, including a 3-0 win in Chicago last year.

TOURNAMENT MVP

IPFW junior Emily Spencer, the reigning Summit League Player of the Year, was named the MVP of the IPFW Hyatt Place Invitational, as she had a tournament-high 53 kills on the weekend, hitting .325 with 21 digs and seven blocks. Spencer and sophomore Hailie Ripley were named to the Cleveland State All-Tournament Team. At the Butler Invitational, senior Jen Milligan was named to the All-Tournament Team.

KILLING THE FRESHMAN RECORDS

When freshman Jadyn' Pegues erupted for 21 kills on Saturday afternoon, she climbed into a tie for the top spot in the school record books for kills in a three-set match by a freshman. She joined recent IPFW Athletics Hall of Fame inductee Fabiana Souza and Amber Borne, each with 21 kills in a three-set match. Of the four now with 21 kills, Pegues is the only one to come in a losing effort.

PLAYERS OF THE WEEK

The Mastodons swept the opening week's Summit League Player of the Week honors, with Emily Spencer earning her third career Summit League Offensive Player of the Week honor, and Jen Milligan's first Defensive Player of the Week award.

REACHING FOR ANOTHER MILESTONE

By the fifth match of the season, two IPFW players picked up key career milestones. Against Southern Illinois on August 31, junior Emily Spencer picked up her 1,000th career kill, while one week later against Cleveland State, senior Jen Milligan became the 16th player in program history to reach the 1,000-kill plateau. Currently Spencer sits 13th in the school record books with 1,127 career kills, while Milligan is 12th with 1,057 career digs.

Purdue University Fort Wayne Athletics

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