Coming off a win against Auburn this past Sunday, the Alabama volleyball team is preparing to go up against Ole Miss Wednesday. The 4-1 win against Auburn heightened the Crimson Tide’s morale. With current standings of 6-12 in the SEC, the Tide plans to take on Ole Miss with confidence and strategy.

The team, currently No. 5 in the SEC West, is not nervous about this match against the Rebels. Ole Miss is ranked beneath Alabama, and the Tide feels their young team is no match for it.

“We are dealing with a fairly young team with inconsistencies,” head coach Ed Allen said. “We are competing more intelligently at times and competing for longer periods of time.”

With inconsistencies comes more confidence. Though the Rebels have won two of their last three more difficult matches, the younger team still has many inconsistencies that the Tide believes will help it win. Junior libero Christina Arenas has never been more confident about playing Ole Miss.

“We want to make sure that we are consistent in building our game because that is what we feel will help us win,” Arenas said.

Alabama has proved that it is an all-around faceted team. Both defensively and offensively, the Tide is very capable of overcoming the Rebels. Statistically, Alabama has a .055 percentage over Ole Miss in the SEC and a 0.16 percentage over them overall. Alabama’s ranking over Ole Miss, though confidence boosting, isn’t factoring into the Tide’s mentality. Arenas said in order to win this next match, the team has to focus on themselves and not the Rebels.

“[We] want to make sure that we are taking more care of our side of the net more than what’s going on over on the opponents side of the net,” Arenas said. “We’re focusing a lot on our blocking and our defense. We think that will be our best bet to win more points and [to] win more matches.”

The Tide knows the Ole Miss match is one of the key matches it needs to win in order to make it into the postseason. Improving on both sides of the ball is going to be one of the crucial factors Alabama will face.

I hope we can continue to improve on both sides of the ball,” Allen said. “Our goal is to improve for the two more matches that we have.”

Alabama hopes to win this game in order to keep up its momentum and consistency.

“We are looking to continue our consistency and not let up,” Arenas said. “We don’t want to be an up and down team, which is what we are working toward, and we want to be able to keep this momentum going especially ending the season and going into the offseason and next season.”

This match, though not defining, will be one of the vital components for the Tide’s postseason goals.