Change is in the air for the Mississippi State volleyball team. The Bulldogs (8-11, 3-7) bounced back from a four-match skid to win two SEC matches last weekend.MSU downed the Georgia Lady Bulldogs by a score of 3-1 Friday night and followed by snatching a thrilling 3-2 victory over Auburn Sunday afternoon.
Mississippi State fourth-year head coach Tina Seals attributes the strong weekend to having everyone back in practice during the week.
“This is the first week that we’ve had everybody participate in practice all week, and it definitely makes a difference at game time during the weekends,” Seals said. “We’re in pretty good shape now.”
MSU struggled early in the weekend as Georgia took the opening game of the match between the two Bulldog rosters by a score of 30-21.
MSU then fell behind Georgia 6-2 in the second game of the match, but then clawed back from that point on to take the second set 30-23. The Maroon and White then cruised to take the next to games by scores of 30-22 and 30-27.
“This was a total team win,” Seals said following the Georgia match. “Jamie [Joyner] had one of her strongest matches of the season and both Ioana Demian and Meaghan Schlueter came off the bench to get us going in that pivotal second game. Cristina Jucan has carried us in recent weeks, but Georgia did a great job defending against her. So we turned to Ioana and Meaghan, and they gave us the spark that we needed to get the win against a very well-drilled Georgia team.”
Joyner led the Bulldog roster offensively with 16 kills while Demian and Schlueter combined to tally 22 kills with the absence of Jucan’s influence.
Sunday saw MSU jump out early to a 2-0 lead in the match over Auburn (10-11, 2-8) but struggle down the stretch.
MSU took the opening sets against Auburn easily by scores of 30-23 and 30-27.
Auburn bounced back, however, and was able to win the third and fourth games each by scores of 30-23. MSU was able to re-take the momentum in the fifth and final game and win it 15-11 and the match 3-2.
“Auburn adjusted,” Seals said. “They found one of our weaknesses we’re working on, and we had to do some shifting to counter that. Plus, we struggled serving. Serving is our game, and we made too many service errors.”
Cristina Jucan re-emerged as the team’s offensive leader in the Auburn match, chalking up 18 kills and 13 digs in the match against the Tigers and hitting on a .286 clip.
“We’ve had a lot of injuries for a while, so I think losing the third and fourth games come straight from not being able to fully practice,” Jucan said. “Now that we have everyone back pretty healthy, we can focus on building our consistency back up and playing well again.”
Jamie Joyner followed closely behind Jucan on the offensive stat sheet with her 14 kills on a .211 percentage including a key kill in the fifth game that caused the crowd to erupt and seemed to take the life out of the Auburn roster.
“This just goes to show that it’s never over until it’s all the way over,” Joyner said. “We just have to keep working hard and not give up. We just have to always have faith in each other, and we can never quit.