The Mississippi State volleyball team looks to have a saintly performance this weekend as it heads into the final matches of its current four-match road trip.The Dawgs (10-13, 5-9 SEC) will butt heads with Auburn (11-14, 3-11 SEC) Friday and will travel east to take on Georgia (14-10, 5-9 SEC) Sunday.
MSU has downed both squads already this season, as it defeated UGA and Auburn by scores of 3-1 and 3-2 the weekend of Oct. 12.
MSU is riding a wave of momentum from its 3-1 win over Arkansas on Sunday.
“At one point in the Arkansas match, we fought off seven game points in a row,” MSU first-year assistant coach Don Perkins said. “That was a big part of the match for us. When we do stuff like that, we can’t help but leave with a lot of confidence. A lot of things came together on Sunday, and hopefully it provides a good launching pad into another SEC road trip.”
MSU topped Auburn 3-2 in the teams’ previous meeting, in scores of 30-23, 30-27, 23-30, 23-30 and 15-11.
“We beat Auburn,” Perkins said. “However, after we won the first two games, we entered kind of a ‘cruise mode.’ Even though we won, I don’t think anyone was really satisfied with that. We know we can play better, and we want to make that apparent.”
The Maroon and White downed Georgia 3-1 on Oct. 12, with game scores of 30-21, 30-23, 30-22 and 30-27.
It was a scrappy come-from-behind victory for MSU.
Similarly to Auburn, Georgia has only put up one win in the conference since falling to MSU.
The team’s general attitude has shifted since the beginning of the season, and a lot of the change has been attributed to the more prominent presence of the team’s five seniors.
“We had a lot of seniors injured earlier in the season, and it’s hard to assert yourself as a leader when you’re not on the court, either in practice or in matches,” Perkins said. “Now that they’re back and in action, they have been providing great examples for our younger players. The seniors’ play can’t help but push the younger players to perform well and to see what State volleyball is all about.”
Sitting with a 10-13 overall record, the Bulldogs will need to go 5-1 on the rest of the season in order to finish with a .500 SEC record, as well as a winning overall record.
It won’t be an easy task, but Perkins said it has the team very focused.
“We’ve let some opportunities slip away this season, and now we’ve come up against a wall,” he said. “We want to finish this season with a winning record, and we don’t have a lot of leeway for that. The thought of the NCAA tournament is looming in the back of our minds, and we have to finish focused because we’re running out of chances.