BALTIMORE, Md. (Oct. 8, 2015)-The Morgan State Lady Bears' volleyball team will return to the court this Friday after a week-long layoff, when they host the Lady Hawks of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) in a Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) Northern Division match. First serve is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Hill Field House.

The Lady Bears (6-11, 3-0 MEAC) will look to build on their current four-match winning streak and improve on its 1-1 home record, while remaining unbeaten in league play. This will be the 55th meeting between the two foes, with the Lady Bears holding a 36-18 all-time series lead. Morgan State has won the last four meetings against UMES.

Morgan State defeated rival Howard by a score of 3-1 last Friday in Baltimore in a match of two unbeaten teams in league play. The win gave the Lady Bears sole possession of first-place in the league standings and their first 3-0 league start since 2006, when that team started out 5-0 and reached the title match.

Arianna Hayden led the Lady Bears with a match-high 16 kills and added eight digs, while Keana Browne added 14 kills and Evely Macedo had 13 kills and eight digs. Minja Rankov finished with a match-high 14 digs and Samantha Prescott fell shy of a double-double with 10 digs and nine kills. Prescott did however move into 10th-place all-time at Morgan State in digs with 839 to move past Monica Scott (835 digs from 1995-98). Carmen Fernandez had a match-high 34 assists, while Minne Masoe added 18 assists.

Offensively Morgan State has been led by Browne and Hayden, who have 174 and 166 kills, respectively. The two also rank first and second in blocks with Browne leading the way with 39, including a team-high six solo blocks and Hayden collecting 19 blocks. Fernandez has tallied a team-best 501 assists and leads the Lady Bears in service aces with 23. Samantha Prescott has recorded a team-leading 169 digs. 

UMES (12-3, 1-1 MEAC), which began the season winning their first 10 matches, is coming off a 3-0 sweep of defending champion Hampton on Tuesday at home. Kristin Fink finished with nine kills and 13 assists to lead the Lady Hawks in the victory. Petra Jerabkova had a match-high 21 assists and Andjela Reljic recorded a match-high 13 digs.  

The Lady Hawks have been paced by Zuzana Ondruskova, who has a team-leading 173 kills and Lucia Babic, who has totaled 151 kills. Ondruskova leads UMES in service aces with 20 and is second on the team in digs with 131. Jerabkova has a team-high 475 assists and ranks second in digs with 122, while Reljic leads the team in digs with 267. Alana Polk leads the team with 64 blocks, including a team-high eight solo blocks.