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HomeSportsInstant Peay Play: Two OVC Titles bookend great year in APSU Sports

Instant Peay Play: Two OVC Titles bookend great year in APSU Sports

Instant Peay Play - APSU SportsClarksville, TN – As the final days of the 2019 calendar countdown we can look back on a terrific athletic year for Austin Peay State University (APSU), which in the end saw a pair of Ohio Valley Conference Titles come to the Governors.

The year started off with both the APSU men’s and women’s basketball teams making the OVC Tournament after posting .500-or-better seasons, including the men’s team recording their first 20-plus win season since the 2010-11 school year and winning an in-season tournament title – the St. Pete Shootout in December.

Austin Peay State University Women's Tennis and Football team won OVC Championships in 2019. (APSU Sports Information)
Austin Peay State University Women’s Tennis and Football team won OVC Championships in 2019. (APSU Sports Information)

As spring sports rolled around, both the baseball and softball teams posted 30-plus win seasons, with both teams making the OVC Tournament and making deep runs before bowing out, while beach volleyball posted a .500 record in just its third season of play.

Both the men’s and women’s golf team would also have solid season’s, with the women’s team picking up two wins – including defending their title at the Town and Country Invitational – while the men’s team posted a pair of runner-up finishes.

But it was the women’s tennis team that finished with a season for the ages, going a perfect 20-0 during the regular season to become only the second APSU team to post an undefeated regular season in school history and win their first OVC regular season title since 1989.

They would also post two more wins at the OVC Tournament to win the OVC title – their first since 2010 — and earn the automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament, heading in as the only undefeated team in the nation before falling to Wake Forest in the tournament’s opening round.

And to wrap up this past year with the recently finished fall semester, both soccer and volleyball made their respective OVC postseason tournaments, but it was the football team that turned heads and brought APSU Govs fans to a frenzy, as they put together the greatest season in the program’s history – finishing 11-4 – and winning the OVC regular-season title for only the second time and the first since 1977 while also earning the conference automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament — the first time in program history.

But just making the postseason wasn’t all the APSU Govs had in them, as they won two games in the tournament to make the quarterfinals as one of the final eight teams left in the championship tournament.

That’s just the team accomplishments in 2019.

Individually, there were Coach of the Year honors, All-OVC First-Team selections and All-American selections – both for on the field and in the classroom excellence – baseball players being drafted by Major League Baseball teams, while others signed as free agents.

Softball would also have its first player sign a pro contract with a team in the National Pro Fastpitch League, as well as being selected to play in the Pan-America Games.

The track and field team had a pole vaulter win a sixth gold medal in the OVC Championships, an all-time conference record.

Those are just some of the many highlights and accomplishments by Austin Peay State University teams and student-athletes this past year … a very, very good year indeed.

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