With an overall record of 1-2, Mississippi State volleyball is prepared to play in this weekend’s Dr. Mary Jo Wynn Invitational in Springfield, Mo., hosted by Missouri State University.
The team is set to compete at 10 a.m. against Stephen F. Austin and close out the first day against Cal-Davis at 5 pm. Play will resume Saturday with a competition against Missouri State at 12:30 p.m. and close out the tournament against Memphis at 5 p.m.
First-year head coach, Jenny Hazelwood has high hopes for this year’s team and knows injury and illness are always a factor in keeping a team healthy.
“The girls we’ve got out there are doing a great job,” she said. “I’ve seen a lot of good things. Would the first few games have been different if we were 100 percent healthy? Who knows?”
Sophomore Mandy Mellencamp, played all of last weekend’s MSU Maroon Classic while recovering from swine flu.
“It was hard to make my body do what it didn’t want to,” she said. “I just played until I was tired but the adrenaline helped me keep going.”
Senior Dorey Gray said she did not seem to notice any difference in Mellencamp’s playing ability.
Sophomore Faith Steinwedell is coming off of an ACL tear at the end of last season and played more in a substitute role in last week’s games.
“I recovered quicker than doctors thought, but I didn’t realize how hard it would be to come back,” Steinwedell said. “It’s been a mental challenge, but the staff has been supportive, making it easier.”
Having to rehabilitate the knee injury, Steinwedell has to get reacquainted with the speed of the game.
“She’s still fighting back and getting all of her movement and quickness back,” Hazelwood said. “Just getting that full speed, quickness and reaction time back, that’s what she’s still working on.”
With three games comes plenty of film for coaches and players to study and dissect helping specify phases of the game where the team needs improvement.
“Going into this weekend, we had a pretty clear picture after going back and watching film of some specific areas that we really struggled and have worked on this week,” Hazelwood said. “Where we’re really working on is tightening up our blocking. We blocked a lot of shots, but the other teams were getting kills off of our blocks.”
She said that the team is much better in passing and serving than in the past, but neither aspect is where she wants the team to be.
“We’re working on getting more disciplined across the board and getting to our spots on defense and making smarter decisions,” she said. “We’ll make those adjustments this weekend.”