Mississippi State (5-16, 1-9 SEC) volleyball concluded its two SEC weekend matches having lost straight sets against No. 8 Kentucky (19-1, 9-0 SEC) on Friday and Tennessee (17-5, 8-2 SEC) on Sunday.
Kentucky demonstrated why it is the No. 8 team in the nation as they made very few mistakes and kept themselves in rallies as the ball rarely seemed to land on their side of the court en route to a straight sets win (25-17, 25-17, 25-16).
MSU coach Jenny Hazelwood commended the Bulldogs’ team effort and welcomed the challenge Kentucky posed entering the matchup.
“They’re so strong defensively that they keep themselves in every rally, and their setter is outstanding and can put their hitters in great situations every time she touches the ball,” she said. “We weren’t as good at getting to the right spots and taking care of what we knew was coming at us.”
Kentucky was led by junior middle hitter Sarah Mendoza with 14 kills and 14 digs with a .353 hitting percentage. As a team, the Wildcats hit a .404 clip.
MSU sophomore outside hitter Caitlin Rance led the team with 10 kills, her third match in a row with double-digit kills.
“We started off pretty strong offensively, and then they started mixing up where they were blocking and I don’t think we adjusted quick enough,” Rance said. “I think we did pretty well defensively, we got a lot of balls up that we haven’t been getting up.”
Senior outside hitter Ioana Demian entered the weekend two digs away from her 500th and reached the mark with four on the night.
Kentucky led in kills 54-31 and committed only eight hitting errors.
MSU senior setter Dorey Gray said the team was not able to execute on plays with a second attempt at the ball.
“They got a lot of great ups and that’s what great teams do,” she said. “We tried mixing it up and we were successful sometimes, and other times they just made good plays.”
In Sunday’s match against Tennessee, the Bulldogs out blocked the Lady Vols, 9-5, but came up short in three sets, 25-18, 25-20, 25-21.
“Tennessee is a team that runs a two-setter system so they always have three hitters in the front row and that can be hard to play defense against,” Hazelwood said. “We out-blocked them and that’s huge. They’re the best blocking team in our conference.”
Having reached the halfway point in SEC play, the Bulldogs are optimistic in continuing to grow as a young team as they look to repeat matches against all the teams they’ve played.
“I feel we’ve got a lot of matches that we can win the second time around,” Hazelwood said.