Hayley McSparin did not even know she had done something she had never accomplished before.
In the locker room, after the match against Murray State on Friday, McSparin even commented to her teammates that she needed to improve her blocking.
Coach Ed Allen then read off the stat sheet. McSparin had collected 11 blocks, a personal best.
She was shocked by the numbers, on the video board, players can read their “dig” and “kill” stats, but that’s about all the stats they know during the game. It was a pleasant surprise for McSparin.
“I was like, whoa, okay,” said McSparin. “I have been growing as a blocker and I am still working on it. Hopefully by the end of the year, I’ll be able to have many matches like that game where I blocked a lot.”
Allen feels there’s a lot more McSparin can accomplish, as she continues to learn the middle blocker position.
“Is she capable of better? Absolutely,” said Allen. “Will she be better than that? Yeah. And she’ll have to continue to grow as a middle blocker. Right now she is a middle hitter and we need her to be a middle blocker and a middle hitter, which means she’s going to have to read the situation and make the appropriate response and put up a solid block at the net.”
This performance came six days after McSparin was benched for not performing well against Furman. She has rebounded from that performance and her teammates and coaches have taken notice.
“She responded really well,” said freshman setter Meghan Neelon. “She came back and hit .500 with 11 kills. That just shows that her resiliency is unreal.”
For McSparin, the game was not up to her standards, but she kept working and tried to forget her struggles that day.
“I just put that game behind me and I just looked forward to the next game and did everything to prepare and to be ready to play,” McSparin said. “I started off okay, but then I got into a slump, but I am starting to get back to my last season self.”
Alabama will open up SEC play with matches against Georgia on Friday at 6 p.m. and Ole Miss on Sunday at 1:30 p.m.
The Crimson Tide will travel from Athens, Ga. to Oxford, Miss. on Friday after it’s match Friday. The team feels it is well prepared for both teams.
“Right now our main focus is on Georgia, but we do have our mindset that this is going to be two hard matches on the road to play,” McSparin said. “We still have Ole Miss that we are thinking about but right now we are just preparing for Georgia.”
A sophomore, McSparin, got to experience SEC play a season ago, when Alabama went 9-9 in conference. The Crimson Tide defeated Georgia each of the two times the teams faced off.
McSparin cannot wait for the freshman and the newcomers to the team to get the opportunity to play in-conference games.
“I think it’s going to be very exciting for them,” she said. “After having a year of SEC play under my belt, I am just really excited to just get it going and get the season rolling and being done with tournaments.”
