On  Halloween night the Mississippi State University women’s volleyball team was unable to gain the victory against Auburn. 
The Bulldogs were again plagued with a slow start coming out of the gate, which has been a consistent problem for the team this season. After they settled into the game, they established a certain amount of rhythm, and they fought back to make the last two sets highly contested. However, a narrow defeat in the fourth set sealed their fate for the night, as they fell 3-1 to the Auburn Tigers to fall to 1-10 in SEC play.
Head Coach Jenny Hazelwood pointed to her team’s slow start as the main factor that hindered its chances of winning the match and said it continues to be a problem.
“Just a really slow start. That was really disappointing because that was a match that we knew we could be competitive in, and it’s like we were timid to start,” she said. “Once we lit a fire under them at half-time, we were playing really good volleyball after that. We just had given Auburn way too much confidence at that point.”
In the first set of the match, the Bulldogs really struggled to gain their footing, as they fell down early 10-5 after the Tigers strung together a 5-0 run, which included three straight kills from Stephanie Campbell. The Bulldogs tried to rally as a Chelsea Duhs kill brought the Bulldogs within two points at 22-20, but the Tigers were able to win three out of the next four points to take the set 25-21.
Matters looked as if they would improve early on in the second set. Both teams exchanged points throughout the first half of the set until Auburn broke the pattern and proceeded to go on a 7-1 run to close out the set with the final score of 25-16. The set was highlighted by seven kills by Auburn middle blocker Macy Reece and five errors on the part of MSU.
To their credit, the Bulldogs came reenergized out of the halftime locker room, and it showed on the court in the third set. MSU was able to jump out to a 10-6 lead before Auburn fought back to within two points at 11-9. It was at this point the Bulldogs grabbed control of the set as they went on a 6-0 run, thanks to some great overall team play.
From there things were relatively comfortable for MSU in the rest of the set. They were able to hold onto their lead all the way to the end, as Reece’s attacking error gave the Bulldogs the 25-18 victory, making the overall score 2-1 in favor of Auburn.
The Bulldogs tried to carry this momentum over to the fourth set but found themselves down for the large majority of the remaining points. Facing an early deficit of 10-5, the Bulldogs were able to eventually fight their way back to tie the score at 20 apiece. Then with the score deadlocked at 23, Auburn was able to win back to back points after an attacking error from Duhs and an Auburn kill from Emily Klitzke to set the final 3-1 score in favor of the Tigers.
After the match, Duhs said a focused week in practice will go a long way to improving.
“I think we had a great opportunity to win, and we didn’t take advantage of it tonight,” she said. “We’re just going to work harder this next week in practice and work on our defense as well as being stronger in our blocking.”
Along with this, junior Alex Warren said getting into a rhythm early is something the squad seeks to improve.
“We start slow because we’re always a little step behind. It’s not like we want to start slow,” she said. “That’s the one thing we want to work on, is to being the team that starts strong and finishes strong. The thing is we have the finish strong part, we just don’t have the start strong part yet.”
The key contributors of the night for the Bulldogs on offense were Duhs, Warren and Emily Howard. They had 14, 11 and 11 kills, respectively, for the Bulldogs. In additon to this Shelby Anderton finished the match with 39 assists to go along with her two kills and eight digs.
Defensively, the Bulldogs were led by Peyton Harris, who finished the game with 23 digs, marking another 20-dig game for the freshman standout. Junior Katlyn Mataya added 10 digs to the Bulldog cause.
Altogether, the Bulldogs know what they must do going forward if they want to be successful. They next play at home on Wednesday against Ole Miss, and Hazelwood described the game as winnable.
“That’s another match that we know we can be very competitive in,” she said. “The first time we played them at their place, we didn’t even have a number of players playing in that game that are playing now. It’s a match that we know if we execute, then it’s one that we can definitely win.”
MSU lost to Ole Miss in the first match this season 3 sets to 0. The first serve is set   for 5 p.m. Wednesday at the Newell-Grissom Building. The game will be televised nationaly on ESPNU. The Bulldogs will try for their second SEC win this season.