On Friday, the Alabama volleyball team played the undefeated LSU Tigers for its annual Crimson Tide Cram the CAVE event.
The Tide lost to the undefeated team in three consecutive sets (25-20, 25-22, 25-22), then fell yet again this Sunday against the Arkansas Razorbacks at home, 3-1 (25-21, 21-25, 25-19, 25-20).
The Crimson Tide (8-5) has now opened conference play 0-3 after an 8-2 start. The win for Arkansas jumps the Razorbacks to 8-7 overall and 2-2 in SEC play.
“What I shared with our team in the locker room is that we need everyone playing with maximum effort on game day, because right now I feel like we practice harder than we play,” head coach Judy Green said. “They need a little bit more courage and need to be willing to take some risks.”
There are five freshmen players on the team who play consistently on the floor, but with hardly any SEC experience.
“Right now they’re holding back and it’s probably because they haven’t done it enough and haven’t been successful enough, especially in SEC play,” Green said. “They’re freshmen. They have their good days and their not so good days.”
Sophomore Kayla Fitterer ended the game with a career-high 21 kills. Along with Fitterer’s impressive numbers, senior Alyssa Meuth came out with 11 kills, senior Kayla Schmidt contributed 26 assists and sophomore Kelsey Anderson picked up a team-high 13 digs.
Although the first set was relatively close in the beginning, the hurt confidence from the Tide’s previous loss to the Tigers became very evident in Alabama’s lack of energy when Arkansas took seven of the last eight points, ending the first set 25-21.
“I felt we should have played with more energy to begin the match,” Green said. “But we didn’t give ourselves the chance because we made so many errors in the beginning of the match.”
When the second set started, the crowd could see the energy come back to life in the way Alabama played.
“We responded, got our energy back, got a little bit more rhythm in the second set,” Green said. “I think the difference in the match was the fact that we didn’t pass the ball very well or serve the ball very well. If we would have done that then I think the outcome would have been better.”
The third set started out pretty well for the Tide, scoring six kills in the first eight points, then the Razorbacks brought the score back to 9-9, which was only the beginning of their comeback.
“We played very flat throughout the majority of the match,” Green said.
During the last set Fitterer started racking up her career high in kills, but in the end the Tide lost the final set, 25-20.
Arkansas hardly beat the Tide’s attack percentage with a .289, while Alabama ended with a .246. Arkansas managed to kill the Tide with 10.5 blocks to Alabama’s 3.0.
“I’m not very happy with our 11 service errors,” Green said. “Until we can get maximum effort on game day, our execution won’t stand a chance.”
The Tide will play against Georgia on Friday at 6 p.m. and Auburn on Sunday at 1:30 p.m.
