After a month of road matches, the Lady Bulldog volleyball team happily greeted Homecoming and two chances to turn its season around.
Game 1
“It was really nice to play in front of the home crowd and sleep in our own beds,” head coach Brenda Bowlin said. “It also gives you an extra day of practice because you don’t have to travel on that Thursday.”
The Lady Razorbacks entered Friday’s match atop the Southeastern Conference, but State didn’t care. It was an opportunity for David to slay Goliath.
The Lady Dawgs shocked the Hogs by taking game one thanks to a .209 to .175 hitting percentage.
“We came out fired up and played our hearts out,” Rachel Cooper (14 kills, 13 digs) said.
With the score knotted at 15, Tanika Taylor served three straight aces. Taylor also had five of her team-high 17 kills in game one and posted 10 digs for the double-double.
The Hogs accepted the challenge and made just two hitting errors in the second game.
In games three and four State made it to 27 points before Arkansas, but the Hogs rallied for the wins.
Arkansas had too much firepower, including 6-foot-5-inch SEC Player of the Week Sara Kincaid. The senior wounded the Bulldogs with 19 kills on a .515 hitting percent performance. Lady Razorbacks Kele Brewer and Jennifer Haaser added 16 and 13 kills respectively.
“If you look at our scores, we’ve been so close but so far away,” Bowlin said. “The kids have not given up. We gave it everything we had and did everything we could do. It’s certainly our most consistent match of the year.”
Game 2
MSU did not bring the same intensity or focus into Sunday’s match with a team inferior to Arkansas. LSU (8-11, 3-4) took advantage of State’s flat performance and made short work of the Dawgs, who had nine attack errors and only seven kills in game one.
“Today we came out flat,” Bowlin said. “We had a decent warm-up but didn’t get anything done. We lacked rhythm, lacked consistency and our passing was poor.”
LSU out-hit, out-served, out-dug and out-blocked MSU.
Regan Hood led the Tigers with 14 kills on a .385 performance and Lauren Leaumont followed with 10 kills.
Cooper led the Dawgs with 10 kills and seven digs and Hilary Chambers added eight kills and hit .400, but LSU never lost control of the match.
“We had poor execution in all phases of the game,” Bowlin said. “Other than Hilary’s .400, everybody else didn’t execute. Our outsides couldn’t get the job done.”
Chambers said that poor communication and a general lack of focus were crucial factors against LSU.
“We played hard Friday night-I don’t know if we took LSU for granted or what,” Chambers said. “We all have to hold ourselves accountable for executing our positions.”
“This is a missed opportunity,” Bowlin said.