The Mississippi State volleyball team returned home this weekend to face two SEC West foes in hopes of increasing the Bulldogs’ NCAA Tournament chances, but the Dogs were blanked by Arkansas Friday and lost a tough five-set match to LSU on Sunday.
Earlier in the season, State lost 3-0 at Arkansas due to a poor offensive showing, tallying a season-low 28 kills. The rematch in Starkville was very similar as MSU managed just 30 kills and the second lowest kill percentage of the season at .043.
Junior libero Hillary Parker registered a match-high 14 digs, but State was out-dug 40-32 on the night. Senior Caitlin Rance led the team with 10 kills, but the next highest kill total was five.
After playing the current SEC West first-place team, the Dogs hosted the reigning champs from the West, the LSU Tigers. Two Bulldog freshmen got their first career SEC starts on Sunday. Rachel Williams took over the reigns at setter while Sara Temperilli played back row for junior Faith Steinwedell, who re-tweaked her knee in Friday’s match.
Head coach Jenny Hazelwood said Temperilli did a great job, and Williams played outstanding.
“Rachel really ran our offense well,” Hazelwood said. “As a freshman with not a lot of experience, she was very calm and ran a solid offense, and I think we looked good with her out there.”
However, these two strong performances were not enough for State to pull out the victory. The girls started off strong and took a commanding 1-0 lead, defeating the Tigers 25-15. The Dogs dominated the net in the first, receiving five kills from Rance, four from senior Hannah Wilkinson and three from freshman Lainey Wyman.
State continued to play well in the second set, and back-to-back blocks by Wilkinson and Steinwedell sealed the set in favor of the Dogs. In the following game, MSU had match point before the Tigers rallied to score three straight points and steal the game away.
These few points proved to be the turnaround in the game as State dropped the next two sets, 25-15 and 15-11, to lose the match. Parker said the team simply did not finish out the third game, which cost the Bulldogs the next two.
“When we were up by three in the third, we should have pushed to the finish, but we let them back,” Parker said. “In the fourth we just lost focus, and everyone got really frantic and fidgety; you’re never going to win a ball game playing like that.”
Rance said the letdown was due to mental errors and letting too many free balls hit the ground.
“We definitely struggled in the fourth game, and one thing we struggled with the most was putting the ball away,” Rance said. “We let them go on runs because we couldn’t put one away.”
Rance, who was honored before the game for becoming a member of the Bulldogs’ 1,000-kill club, recorded her 10th double-double of the year, tallying 22 kills and 11 digs. Wilkinson added 11 kills and Wyman 10, but all of Wilkinson’s kills came in the first three sets.
In the fifth set, Hazelwood inserted sophomore setter Paris Perret into the game for Williams for blocking purposes. The Tigers had consistently been setting their outside hitters, who could hit over Williams. Perret got a few touches on the balls but not enough to push State over the edge. Williams seemed calm throughout the match and said Perret had been very supportive of her, giving her tips and confidence.
“It was great; I was really confident in the training my coaches had given me,” Williams said. “I just went out there and executed what they told me to do, and I felt really great.”
MSU has now lost its last five SEC matches, including the first four of the second round of games. However, Hazelwood continues to see every game as a learning experience, especially since her team is almost half freshmen.
Hazelwood said the girls have to be tougher on themselves individually in practice to improve those areas in which they are struggling.
“When you get a team like that on the ropes, you have to put them away, but our youth got the best of us a couple times as we made some critical mistakes,” Hazelwood said. “We really did a lot of good things early, and that’s something we can build on; we know what it looks like when we have success with the style of play that we play, and we just have to find a way to be consistent with that.”