MSU volleyball will take its youth movement on the road this weekend with a pair of tough matchups to open SEC play. Friday night the team will play at South Carolina and Sunday they will play at Tennessee.
Both South Carolina and Tennessee sport top-notch programs, not to mention intimidating arenas. USC currently ranks 16th in the nation in attendance, while Tennessee finished last season with a 9-2 home record.
“We’re playing two very good programs this weekend,” said head coach Tina Seals. “This will be a huge challenge for us this early in the season. But anything is possible, and we are ready for them.”
The Bulldogs will need to be ready for more than just raucous crowds.
South Carolina returned all but one starter from last season, including SEC freshman of the year Lynae Vanden Hull.
Tennessee is 9-1 thanks to the solid play of All-SEC middle blocker Kristen Andre. UT is No. 24 nationally.
While State (7-5) has doubled its 2003 win total, this will be the first chance to play SEC competition for close to half of the team.
This team has not gone untested. State lost at Missouri and took a talented Idaho team to five games.
“We have already played two ranked teams,” Sledge said. “That has given us some confidence to know that we can compete and prepared us for the SEC.”
The Bulldogs will undoubtedly find out just how prepared they really are.
Junior outside hitter Rachel Cooper sees unique opportunities for this budding program to shine.
“We’ve really come together over the last month that we’ve been playing together,” Cooper said. “We had such a bad year last year, nobody’s going to be ready for us. But we’re ready to get started and surprise some people.”