Following a disappointing weekend, the UT volleyball team is eager to bounce back as they travel to Indiana Tuesday night to take on the Evansville Purple Aces.
The Lady Vols (2-4) lost every set of every match this weekend at the Iowa State Challenge. Now, they are hopeful that a strong showing against the Purple Aces (2-5) will get their season back on track.
“We’re just using this as a lesson,” said sophomore Jamie Lea. “It’s a place we never want to go back to, so we’re just gonna take it and run with it and fix our errors, and fix it from there.”
Head coach Rob Patrick has been forced to rely on many young players this season and that lack of experience has been evident in many of the Lady Vols’ recent losses.
Unforced errors were a primary problem for this team last weekend, something Patrick attributed to the presence of many underclassmen on the floor.
“When you put stress on freshmen, that’s what happens,” Patrick said. “It’s just an experience thing. We put in some younger players, and gave them the opportunity to get out there and play, and they really did a wonderful job.”
Evansville, on the other hand, boasts a far more experienced roster, an advantage they will likely use Tuesday night.
“They have some foreign players on their team, and most of the time foreign players are a little bit more experienced than American players,” Patrick said. “They play a lot more matches. It’s gonna be the story of this year, that we’re gonna be playing a team that is more experienced than us.”
Despite losing their first five contests this season, The Purple Aces won their past two matches convincingly.
While their record might not stand out on paper, Tennessee knows better than to look past any of their opponents, especially when going on the road.
“We definitely don’t underestimate anyone,” freshman Iesha Bryant said. “We go in with the same mentality every game. We’re just gonna go in, defend our side of the court, do what we need to do, and play our sport.”
Finding a way to avoid costly errors will be critical to this team’s success. By focusing more on defense during practice, the team can eliminate unforced errors during a game.
Consistency is another area of concern this week, as the young Lady Vols’ roster has struggled to put together more than one solid set in a row on several occasions this year.
“I think we just need to take care of our side of the net.” Patrick said. “There were times when we played Iowa State, a top 25 team, and we were playing point for point with them.
“We can’t have those three point runs where we’re inconsistent. We have to just continue to work, consistency is really the X-factor in our matches.”
