The Lady Vols will be celebrating Thanksgiving in Tuscaloosa as they travel to face Alabama in a pair of matches.
With Thanksgiving on Thursday, the schedule for Tennessee will be abnormal with the series taking place on Wednesday and Friday.
Even with the odd schedule, the Lady Vols will approach the matches the same.
“We don’t stray too far from our routine,” head coach Eve Rackham Watt said. “This week looks a lot like last week, practice, film, and preparation for Alabama.”
On top of the different match scheduling, the Lady Vols will spend Thanksgiving as a team, including some traveling families.
“It’s kind of a nice thing to do and celebrate while we’re on the road together,” Rackham Watt said. “Other than that, our focus is on playing Alabama.”
Tennessee sits at 16-12 on the year and fifth in the SEC. The Lady Vols currently rank at No. 39 in the RPI rankings.
With the postseason selections coming on Sunday, Tennessee could use a sweep in Tuscaloosa to boost its postseason resume.
“We talk about (the postseason) at the beginning of the year when we talk about where we want to be at the end of the year,” Rackham Watt said. “We want to be playing our best volleyball, we want to be as healthy as we can be. I would say those two things are true. This is the healthiest we’ve been throughout the season and we’ve strung some good matches together over the last couple of weeks. We wanna be playing our best volleyball at the end t put ourselves in a situation to have a chance to be in the postseason.”
Tennessee has been on a hot streak lately, putting the Lady Vols in a position to have a chance at the postseason. Tennessee has won six of its last seven matches.
The Lady Vols have had offensive dominance over their last seven matches. Tennessee is up to .263 hitting on the year.
Morgan Fingall has led the charge for the Lady Vols, firing on all cylinders. She leads the SEC with 4.24 kills per set.
Senior Natalie Hayward has also joined in on the fun, taking a more offensive role from the setter position. In Tennessee’s most recent match against Mississippi State, she finished with a triple-double, putting down 10 kills, 61 assists, and 14 digs.
“Natalie Hayward runs our offense and she’s experienced and she’s been making really good decisions,” Rackham Watt said. “She’s put our hitters in a lot of advantageous situations. I think there’s a lot of trust and even saw it at the end of the game against Mississippi State. Morgahn had four or five kills in a row and on match point, she went to Jasmine (Brooks) and on the next point, she went to Danielle (Mahaffey). So I think it just shows there’s a lot of trust in our attackers. That’s something that’s been built over time.”
Alabama sits at 9-19 (3-13) on the season. Despite the Crimson Tide’s lackluster record, they still could play spoiler to Tennessee’s postseason hopes.
First serve is set for 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday on SEC Network and 6 p.m. ET on Friday on SEC Network+.
“(Alabama’s) been tough,” Rackham Watt said. “They played a lot of people really close… So they’ve got a number of weapons offensively. I think in the matches when they’ve been really getting really good, their middle has been a big reason why.”
