Splitting any weekend series in the SEC is a major accomplishment for a fledgling Mississippi State volleyball team. Splitting this particular weekend series was huge for the young squad. The team notched its biggest upset of the season Friday with a five-game win over the Georgia Bulldogs before falling in three games to the No. 8 Florida Gators Sunday.
Friday, Oct. 29
Coming into the match, Georgia was tied for fourth place in the SEC standings with a 6-4 conference record. State was not intimidated, however. MSU dominated the opposing Bulldogs in the first two games, 30-19 and 30-28. After the break the Lady Dawgs seemed to be out of sync, losing the third game 30-26 and getting crushed 30-16 in the fourth.
“We lost our focus in the third and fourth games,” junior Rachel Cooper said. “We still haven’t learned how to get out of a rut once we get down. But then in the fifth game we woke up and realized what was on the line. We executed our game and it worked.”
The fifth game was a nail-biter, as the teams played each other head-for-head for the first six points. However, MSU’s vaunted serve attack came through in the pinch, scoring two aces on the team’s way to a 15-8 victory.
“We worked on serve and serve reception all week and it paid off for us,” said head coach Tina Seals. “Georgia has a very talented team, and when they came back from the break and took control of the match, our players could have given up. But they battled back and played with the intensity and focus that enabled us to get those early-season Friday night SEC wins at South Carolina and LSU.”
Assistant coach Jozsef Forman said the team’s struggles in games three and four gave the coaching staff time to regroup and finish strong.
“We got a chance in game four to play different people and see who we wanted to play game five. We also switched from a 5-2 set to a 6-1, and that worked,” Forman said. “They proved that if we have energy we can compete with anybody. That fifth game was all about MSU heart. We told them we wanted a big, big, effort for 10 minutes. I feel like a team was born in that fifth game.”
Sunday, Oct. 31
Coming off the huge upset win over Georgia, the Bulldogs did not appear to be resting on their success in the opening game against the Florida Gators.
They played Florida point for point, even taking an 8-7 lead early in the contest. However, the eighth-ranked Gators proved their ranking by rallying behind their stars Michelle Chatman and Jane Collymore to hold off the tenacious Dawgs 30-23.
The loss, combined with superb Gator defense, appeared to stymie the Bulldogs momentum as they recorded a matth-worst -.171 attack percentage in the second game, losing 30-13.
The third and final game of the match finished much like the previous game. The Lady Dawgs made determined efforts at the net, but got rejected time and time again by the Gators’ defense.
Florida notched 16 total blocks in the match and posted a .333 attack percentage, while State only registered four blocks and finished the match with a -.023 attack.
“We came out strong in the first game, but then we played scared in games two and three,” setter Andrea Mead said. “But we believed we could win today, and that was a big step for us against a program like Florida, and with the way we played in game one, we know we can play with anyone.”
“It was a good weekend for our young team,” said Seals. “We picked up an important win Friday against a very fine Georgia team and had our moments against Florida, one of college volleyball’s best teams.”
The weekend split leaves the Bulldogs in seventh place in the SEC, fighting for a spot in the eight-team SEC tournament with four games left to play.
The team will return to SEC action next weekend with road trips to Auburn and Alabama.