The Southeast Missouri State volleyball team will try to nail down a spot in the Ohio Valley Conference tournament over the next two days while also finishing its home schedule in style.

Southeast (9-16, 7-7) is tied for fifth place with Tennessee-Martin in the 11-team Ohio Valley Conference. The top six finishers qualify for the OVC tournament.

Murray State (6-15, 3-11) visits Houck Field House tonight, while Tennessee-Martin (10-14, 7-7) comes in Saturday night for the regular-season finale. Both matches begin at 7 p.m.

While some other squads are also still within striking distance of fifth and sixth place, because of tiebreakers, Southeast will clinch a spot in the league tournament by winning its final two matches. And even one victory would likely get Southeast in. Two wins could allow Southeast to finish as high as fourth in the standings.

"We've got it in our hands, but we just have to win this weekend," Southeast coach Cindy Gannon said.

Southeast is coming off a victory at Morehead State in which it rallied from two games down last weekend.

"We're playing good volleyball," Gannon said. "To come back and beat Morehead after we were down two games was very promising for me as a coach. We showed a lot of poise and maturity."

Southeast's young squad features just two seniors. Ashley Smith, who has missed the last half of the year with a season-ending knee injury, and backup setter Kristin McElroy will be recognized before Saturday's match.

"We'll have senior night Saturday and everybody will be excited about that," Gannon said. "We want to send our seniors off with a victory, and we want to finish strong these last two matches and look forward to playing in the tournament."

Sophomore Jessica Koeper leads Southeast in kills with 344, junior Lauren Scannell leads in digs with 420, and sophomore Jamie Baumstark is tops in both assists with 968 and service aces with 54.

Scannell has cracked Southeast's single-season top 10 list in digs for Division I play, while Baumstark has made the list in aces.

Women's basketball at home

The Southeast women's basketball team completes its exhibition schedule tonight with a 7:30 p.m. game against Division II Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville at the Show Me Center.

Southeast rolled past Division II Christian Brothers 75-40 Monday in its exhibition opener.

"For the first time out, I was pretty pleased with how we played, but we've got a long way to go," Southeast coach B.J. Smith said.

Smith said touted junior college transfer Tatiana Conceicao, who suffered a concussion late in Monday's game, appears to be fine. Conceicao tied senior Chandra Brown for high scoring honors with 15 points.

SIUE was 11-17 last year and already has lost a pair of exhibition games to Division I opponents this season, falling at Bradley 86-63 and at Western Illinois 75-48.

The Cougars' leading returning scorer is former Southeast player Tanya Guell, a 6-foot-1 junior center who averaged 13 points per game last year.

Guell was at Southeast for two years, redshirting in 2001-02 and seeing limited action in 2002-03 before transferring.

Southeast opens the regular season Nov. 19 at nationally ranked Oklahoma.

Blunt signs

Rachel Blunt of Dexter signed her national letter of intent with Southeast on Thursday.

Blunt, a 6-foot forward, was a first-team all-state selection last year after averaging 19.0 points, 12.0 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game. She set the school record for single-season scoring with 508 points and is 209 points away from the school record.