Mississippi State volleyball (6-21, 2-14 SEC) dropped both weekend matches in yet another pair of tough conference road tests. The Bulldogs lost in straight sets to Tennessee (19-6, 12-3 SEC) in Knoxville on Friday (25-13, 25-14, 25-19) and fell to No. 11 Kentucky (24-2, 14-1 SEC) in Lexington on Sunday (25-11, 25-19, 25-19).
The Bulldogs jumped out to a 2-0 lead against the Lady Vols in the first set; however, UT would quickly tie and eliminate MSU’s only lead of the night as they looked in the rearview mirror and drove away with the first two sets heading into the break.
In the third, UT led with a demanding 17-10 advantage, but MSU would not leave without a fight as the Bulldogs pulled within 4, at 21-17.
UT, however, would go on to win four of the next six points to cap off the win.
Head coach Jenny Hazelwood said the team was not where it has been in recent matches on defense.
“[Tennessee] served really well, and we had a tough night passing, and it’s something that we’ll continue to work on,” she said. “This was a match where we can take and learn from.”
Hitting a low .065 overall clip with 24 kills and 18 attack errors, MSU struggled to gain any consistency on offense.
Sophomore outside hitter Caitlin Rance led the Bulldogs with seven kills, while junior middle blocker Ashley Newsome finished with six and a .231 clip.
Tennessee junior outside hitter Nikki Fowler led the Vols with a match-high 10 kills and 16 digs with a .364 attack percentage, giving her eight consecutive double-doubles in as many contests.
Fowler moved up to 13th all-time on UT’s all time career kills list with 1,109.
“We knew that we had a lot of different players that we had to worry about,” Hazelwood said. “[Tennessee was] able to get the ball to a lot of different hitters. They passed well and were playing solid defense.”
In front of 1,524 Kentucky fans, the Bulldog offensive attack was still lacking any rhythm as the Wildcats swiftly took the first set 25-11. MSU would hold leads in the second and third sets, but the Wildcats would jump ahead to eliminate any possibility of a win.
“All in all we didn’t execute,” assistant coach Lindi Bankowski said. “We’re not doing what we can do best. [The team] played harder against [Kentucky] but not as well as we’d like them to.”
MSU senior outside hitter Ioana Demian led the team with six kills, while freshman middle blocker Dravon Rangel made the most of her chances with four attacks and four kills giving her a 1.000 hitting percentage.
Sophomore outside hitter Faith Steinwedell had a solid overall performance with four kills and a .308 hitting percentage alongside three service aces. Woodard paced the defense with 15 of the team’s 35 digs and Gray led with 12 assists.
“The main thing we wanted [the players] to do was play with more enthusiasm and be a tougher team,” assistant coach Branden Higa said. “We can take that away as something we can improve on for this weekend.”
Kentucky finished the match with 52 kills and a .364 attack percentage as five Wildcats tallied eight or more kills led by junior middle blocker Lauren Rapp and junior outside hitter Sarah Mendoza, both with a match-high 13 kills. Mendoza added 10 digs, giving her two consecutive double-double performances.
“They have weapons all across the front row and that’s tough to defend with four hitters at times,” Hazelwood said. “We had good, long defensive rallies, and we won some of those rallies, and we just have to keep at it.”