The Alabama volleyball team had a tough bout this weekend, falling to both Kentucky, 3-1 (15-25, 25-22, 25-19, 25-12), on Friday and No. 24 Tennessee, 3-0 (25-17, 25-21, 26-24), on Sunday.
Just when the Tide seemed to be fighting its way out of a six-game losing streak with a big Southeastern Conference win over South Carolina, 3-0 (25-19, 25-18, 25-16), Alabama was bested by Kentucky this past Friday.
The Tide won the first set of the meet 15-25, leaving the outlook of the rest of the competition positive until Kentucky regrouped and defeated Alabama three times in a row.
“In my mind, I’m thinking, ‘OK, we’re going to get it done tonight, get it done on the road,’ but as soon as Kentucky started playing better, we started backing down a little bit, got a little timid,” said head coach Judy Green. “We just lost our rhythm. We made more errors than they did that evening and that certainly lead to us not being successful.”
Alabama senior Alyssa Meuth topped a personal best and achieved a game-high 20 kills for the Tide, while freshman Whitney Billings of Kentucky led the Wildcats with just 14 kills.
On Sunday, the Lady Volunteers came into their home game against the Tide fully confident due to their shutout win over Mississippi State 3-0 (25-16, 25-17, 25-18) on Oct. 15.
Tennessee dominated the match hitting percentage .286 compared to Alabama’s .205 in its victory the first time this season, the Tide scored zero aces in the entire match.
“I thought the team regrouped pretty well on Sunday,” Green said. “We did not play a very good first set, but we made some really good adjustments and played much more maturely against Tennessee, which is a much better team than Kentucky. I feel like we play really well against the good teams in our conference and very haphazardly against the average teams, the ones we have an opportunity to beat. It’s just a matter of consistency.”
The Tide now stands at 9-10 in regular-season play and falls to 1-8 in the conference.
Alabama will take a trip to Starkville, Miss., to face the Mississippi State Bulldogs at 7 tonight.
“We know we didn’t play our best Friday,” said freshman Morgan Hendrix, “To be able to come out Sunday and play that much better that fast, we’re all ready to get back in a gym on Wednesday and get going because we know we’re not at square one. We’ve done tons of work already to improve, and we’re just a couple of steps behind really achieving our goals and taking everybody out.”
Alabama’s next scheduled home match is against Mississippi in the CAVE at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday.
This event will serve as part of Alabama’s Alumni Weekend. Beginning Friday, to honor former Tide athletes, the volleyball team will allow the former student-athletes to watch an official team practice, enjoy a meet-and-greet luncheon, tour the facilities and receive special recognition during sets 2 and 3 of the game on Sunday. Green reports that there are already more than 28 alumni signed up for the weekend.
“I think they will be very impressed with the character and the class of our team and our staff,” Green said. “We have alums coming from every era of Alabama volleyball. It will be a fun weekend for everybody.”
