The Mississippi State volleyball team is in the middle of its first SEC home stand and faces off next against the Arkansas Razorbacks.The Lady Bulldogs (5-7, 0-3) welcomed Alabama Wednesday in a 7 p.m. match and will tussle with Arkansas tonight at the same time.
“In the Kentucky match [last weekend], we played our hearts out,” MSU head coach Tina Seals said. “We played to the best of our potential, and that was our goal. The score didn’t go our way, though. Our goal this weekend is to play with that same fire. We’ve always played well in the first match of each tournament or weekend, but we want our stamina to carry into the second.”
However, MSU did not put up much of a fight against the Crimson Tide (6-6, 3-0), losing the match 3-0; it was the fourth straight loss for the Bulldogs this season. The Tide won the match in games of 30-27, 36-34, and 30-22.
“We didn’t show the toughness tonight that we need to compete against a solid team like Alabama,” Seals said. “We let that second game slip away, and Alabama took the momentum and ran with it.”
The Bulldogs were led offensively by junior Cristina Jucan, who tallied 15 kills on a .290 hitting night.
Alabama dominated State in all stat categories, however, hitting at a .367 clip, and out-killing the Bulldogs 55-47, and out-digging them 46-33.
Tonight, MSU will look for its first win in the conference against the Lady Razorbacks of Arkansas (6-6, 0-2), who is fresh off a 2-match skid at the hands of Ole Miss, 3-0, and LSU, 3-1.
“Winning and effort go hand-in-hand,” Seals said. “All the SEC teams are good. We do want to win, but we can’t worry about the score. We have to worry about our performance, and the score will take care of itself.”
Mississippi trails Arkansas in the all-time series by a desolate score of 26-1.
However, that one victory came last season at home for the Bulldogs, in a 3-0 shutout performance.
Arkansas won its home match against the Bulldogs last year, too, also in a 3-0 outing.
Seals also said that she considers fan attendance very important.
The MSU-Alabama match was played before a crowd of 318 at the Newell-Grissom Building.
“Fans are important,” Seals said. “They are just about as important as the team is. We would love for them to come out and support us.