The time has come for the MSU volleyball program to step into the 2007 season of Southeastern Conference play. The Bulldogs (5-4) will test the Kentucky Lady Wildcats and Tennessee Lady Volunteers on the road this weekend.MSU is fresh off a thrilling but heartbreaking loss to Memphis last weekend. The loss was MSU’s second of the season in late matches of doubleheaders.
“It’s very beneficial that we don’t have any more doubleheaders scheduled,” said MSU head coach Tina Seals, who obtained her 50th and 51st MSU wins last weekend. “I feel like we will be able to compete in five competitive games from here on out in each match if we have to.”
Mississippi State’s first SEC match will take place today at 6 p.m. against Kentucky (8-2).
Kentucky began the season with a 2-1 outing in Cedar Falls, Iowa, then after defeating Western Kentucky 3-1 swept its home tournament, the Kentucky Classic, never losing a game in four straight matches.
The Cats then continued with a 2-1 showing in the Georgia Tech Classic, losing to Arizona 3-1 then defeating Western Carolina and Georgia Tech to close out the tournament.
Mississippi State will contest Tennessee (5-2) Sunday in a 12:30 p.m. match. UT opened its season with a shutout loss to Nebraska but bounced back to defeat Utah in the AVCA Showcase in Omaha, Neb.
The Lady Vols then swept the competition in their host tournament, the Comcast Lady Volunteer Classic before losing to Creighton in a tournament in Champaign, Ill. Tennessee’s most recent match featured a 3-1 victory over Marquette in that same tournament.
Mississippi State’s roster is still plagued with injuries.
Coach Seals said that senior middle blocker Erin Seago will probably not see action on the court this weekend. Seago’s foot is currently in a boot as a result of a stress fracture.
Seals said that opening the SEC schedule on the road, rather than at home, will be a challenge for her team.
“The advantage at home for us is that we have our whole arena to use our serve in,” Seals said. “In other arenas it depends on how large the arena is as to how much we can use our long serve to our advantage. Our fans here also make it a huge advantage for us to play at home, so opening on the road in the SEC will be especially tough.”
Seals added that scouting and practicing for road opponents is a little different.
“We usually scout ourselves first then try to fix what we messed up on in the matches before our upcoming match,” she said.
“Then, we scout our opponents, and try and simulate what they will do and try to simulate during practice.”
“We only focus on the first opponent we’ll play, usually the day before the match, and then we’ll have a practice on the road to prepare for our second opponent. We normally have an hour of practice in the host school’s gym.”
Though wins are important, Seals said that winning is not the team’s main goal this weekend.
“We’re excited to get SEC play started,” Seals said. “We’re playing against good teams. Kentucky is picked to finish right behind Florida, so we should have some good competition.
We’re starting two freshmen right now, and we want to compete every single point. That’s our goal: to be competitive from start to finish, even if we don’t come out with wins.