It took five games Sunday before Mississippi State volleyball closed the books of its most successful season in six years with a heartbreaking loss to Arkansas.
The Bulldogs won the opening two games from the Razorbacks by scores of 30-23 and 30-27, and headed into the break needing only one more win to earn a berth in the SEC tournament.
“We came out ready to play,” junior setter Andrea Mead said. “This late in the season it’s easy to get down, but we stepped up our game, and I was proud of that.”
However, Arkansas proved to be a worthy opponent, dominating the next two games and evening the match at two games apiece.
The fifth game was a microcosm of the Bulldogs’ season. They dug themselves a hole early in the match, then fought back, then fell short at the end, losing 15-9.
Mead reached the 1,000 single season assists mark in the loss, while Rachel Cooper also moved into Bulldog record books with her 1,018th kill, placing her seventh in the all-time MSU standings.
The loss left the Lady Dawgs, 5-11 in the SEC, tied for eighth in the conference with South Carolina, but due to a points tiebreaker, the Bulldogs are left on the outside looking in at the league tournament.
The five conference wins tied a school record.
“I thought we played hard,” said head coach Tina Seals. “Arkansas is an experienced team, and it was a nice job on their part to come back and win. But I was also proud of our effort.”
The team, which features six freshmen and an entirely new coaching staff, far exceeded the accomplishments of last season’s team. Seals noted that they beat three teams ranked in the Top 30, a very daunting task for such a young squad. The team finished the year with a 14-16 record, an 11 game improvement over last year’s record.
Mead said the team accomplished its main goal, and that was to become a team.
“We had our ups and downs,” Mead said, “but overall, we started as 13 individuals, and we became a family.”
The team graduates only one senior, defender Ashley Sledge, and will thus return almost all of its talent. This gives Seals and the rest of the program hope for an even brighter finish next season.
“We’ve got a lot of individual work to do with correcting techniques,” Seals said. “We plan on working really hard in the off-season and using the time we have together.”