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Bulldogs push Gators to the limit in 3-set loss |
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Monday, 02 November 2009 |
By DAVID MILLER
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In Jenny Hazelwood’s first year as Mississippi State’s head volleyball coach, she’s had the task of rebuilding a program that finished at the bottom of the Southeastern Conference in 2008. Sunday’s televised match against No. 10 Florida gave her a good gauge of the progress that’s been made thus far in ‘09.
Mississippi State, hoping to secure its first win in 36 tries against Mary Wise’s Gators, fell in three sets (25-23, 27-25, 25-22). However, Hazelwood’s squad put a scare into the SEC’s perennial power.
The Bulldogs held a 19-18 lead in the first set, a 22-15 lead in the second and were tied 21-21 in the final frame. To add to the competitive match, State rang up 19 kills to match Florida’s 19 in the first set.
It was clear from the outset of the match that the Bulldogs were still riding the form from Friday’s 3-1 win over South Carolina.
The Bulldogs’ work-rate was kept at a high level, holding Florida (18-3, 12-2) to a .248 kill rate in the match.
“We’re playing great volleyball right now,” Hazelwood said. “We’re looking at it like, here we just played the No. 10 team in the country and the whole three sets we could have won. I think that does a lot for these girls’ confidence. We’re going to Tennessee and Kentucky — two of the other top teams in our conference — and we can play with them.”
Though the Bulldogs (6-19, 2-13) lost the match to the Gators, Hazelwood was quick to point to the positives of her team’s play during the weekend slate. Friday’s win over South Carolina, the opening set against Florida and the team’s defensive effort against the Gators has the first-year MSU coach excited about the team’s remaining six games.
“This weekend, between our Friday night match and this match today, it’s definitely the best volleyball we’ve played all year,” Hazelwood said. “It’s all the way around, we’re running a solid offense, our defense is solid, our blocking is good — we are playing good all around.”
Finishing, however, proved to be the Achilles heel of the Bulldogs, who saw late opportunities to win sets go Florida’s way. A net violation by Ioana Demian clinched the first set for the Gators after Faith Steinwedell brought the team within a point of tying the match, and a seven-point MSU lead in the second dwindled down following a set-point situation that saw libero Kayla Woodard pass over the net and into a Colleen Woodard kill.
“I think it’s just learning to push in those last five points,” MSU senior setter Dorey Gray said. “That’s where we need to be perfect, where every pass is on target, every set goes where it should, and every hit has to be a kill. Also, it’s mixing it up. We frustrated Florida so much because they didn’t know what we were doing. But we’ve got to finish what we start.”
Gray, a Florida native, was pleased to have a solid performance against the team she cheered for growing up. The Bulldogs have taken some lumps this season, but the team appears to be hitting its stride down the stretch. Sunday’s performance was a confidence boost, Gray said.
“I think it just showed us and proved to everyone, especially since it was a TV game, that we can play with anyone,” said Gray, who had a game-high 30 assists and 14 digs. “It doesn’t matter what our rank is or what they’re rank is, we’re going to play neck-and-neck every game.”
The optimism after Sunday’s match might seem confusing considering the Bulldogs lost to the Gators, but with no wins in the history of the series and just three set wins overall, the team knows Sunday’s performance was crucial to building the program.
“Most teams plateau or start going downhill toward the end, and we’ve done nothing but climb,” Gray said. “We keep pushing and we haven’t peaked yet. I think it says something about our program.”
The key, in Hazelwood’s mind, was her team’s ability to make adjustments on the fly. The team did it Friday against South Carolina before dealing with a vaunted Gators attack on Sunday. Florida had four players reach double figures in kills, with sophomore hitter Kristy Jaeckel operating outside and deep in the middle. Jaeckel had two kills, one from the pipeline, for two of the Gators’ final three points in the first set. But it was the Bulldogs’ ability to contain a player that rang up 12 kills and 14.5 points last year in Starkville to just a .179 kill rate that left Hazelwood feeling good about her team’s ability to adjust in-game.
“[Jaeckel] is such a good athlete that she has to jump from behind the 10-foot line and she can attack it in front of the line,” Hazelwood said. “That’s a tough ball to defend because you have to worry about all three front row players. I think we made some good adjustments though, we started blocking there at the end if she was in front of the 10-foot line. I felt like we defended it and blocked it well or she’d have to hit a roll shot that we were able to defend much better.”
State returns to action this Friday at Kentucky, which holds the SEC’s best conference and overall record.
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 07 November 2009 )
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