Women’s volleyball team defeats Mississippi State and Alabama

The Lady Vols finished off the first half of their schedule with consecutive sweeps at home over the Mississippi State Bulldogs on Friday evening and the Alabama Crimson Tide on Sunday afternoon.  UT (15-4, 7-3 SEC) is 8-1 at home this season.

Mississippi State

Fans may have dressed like Lady Vol coach Rob Patrick on Friday night at Thompson-Boling Arena, but only one was able to challenge the Lady Vols the way the two-time National Coach of the Year did.

The Lady Vols responded with a dominating sweep of the Mississippi State, 3-0 (25-16, 25-17, 25-18).

“I challenged them before the match to play with more energy, and I thought they did a wonderful job of doing that in this match,” Patrick said. “I thought our setters did a tremendous job of setting the tempo of our offense. That’s something we really rely on, and it’s something we’ve been working to get more and more consistent as our season has gone by.

“They’ve been working really hard in our practices and the tempo that they’ve been able to get to our hitters. There were a lot of split blocks and one-on-ones and a lot of that had to do with the way our setters were able to get the ball and tempo to our hitters, and I was very happy with that.”  

The Bulldogs (10-9, 2-6 SEC), with a .208 attack percentage, were held to 0.081 by the Lady Vols’ defense. Mississippi State freshman and SEC assist leader Parris Perret led her team with 24 assists, while teammates Caitlin Rance and Ashley Newsome managed to record kill performances of five and eight kills.

The offensive night belonged to UT senior Nikki Fowler, who took advantage of UT’s defense and, with 13 kills, moved into fifth in school history in career kills (1,502).

“It’s cool, and it’s been a really big team effort,” Fowler said.

The Lady Vol outside hitter finished with a .478 attack percentage, six digs and three blocks. The Dallas native eclipsed the milestone in the third set, while she unleashed nine kills on the Bulldogs, including the match-setter. The Lady Vols are 20-1 against Mississippi State under Patrick.

Alabama

In matches like the Lady Vols’ 3-0 sweep (25-17, 25-21, 26-24) of Alabama, it’s the little things the team focuses on, especially when trying to get ready for top-ranked Florida.

Fowler’s 10th and 11th spike not only gave the Big Orange the match, but along with 11 digs, it was her 10th double-double of the season and 48th of her career.

Most of Fowler’s performance came in the second set, when she put up six kills, opening the court up for sophomore teammate Leslie Cikra. Cikra was one of three other teammates — Leah Hinkey and Deedee Harrison — who also had attack percentages of .400 or above, to go with her nine kills and three blocks.  Hinkey tallied seven kills and five blocks, while Deedee Harrison spiked eight and stopped three.

Despite the combined performance, Patrick did have to call a timeout in the third set to regroup, while UT hung on to an 18-17 lead.

“Rob’s really big about the little things, and it was about blocking down the line,” Cikra said. “He just wanted to make sure we took care of that.”

Sophomore Kayla Fitterer and senior Alyssa Meuth kept the Tide (9-10, 1-8 SEC) in the match as best as they could with 14- and 13-kill performances, some of which were kills down the line.  Fitterer got the Tide offense going in the first set with six kills, while Meuth tacked on seven kills in the third set to push the closing set past 25, until Fowler shut the door with consecutive kills.

The stage is set for UT as it travels to Gainesville for a rematch against top-ranked Florida at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 20, in front of a nationally televised audience on ESPN U.

Patrick talked about the Lady Vols’ progress this weekend as a whole and what it must do to pick up the upset against their conference rivals.

“We’re going to have to serve Florida tough, and we’re going to have to serve the right areas of the court to be successful against them, so that’s something we did both Friday and today is serve better,” said Patrick. “Our offense is still good, our serve-receive has been consistent throughout the matches that we play.

“Again we went a whole weekend without getting hasty which is a big deal. We’re not giving up points away that way.  So if we just take care of those things and not make errors, if we can get them a little bit off-balance serving, we’ll put ourselves in a better chance to be successful on Wednesday.”