OXFORD — Sophomore middle blocker Bayleigh Scott had a career-best 15 kills and four blocks, while junior Emily Stroup had 17 kills and senior Caitlin Wernentin added 11 Sunday to help the Ole Miss volleyball team rally for a 3-1 victory against Mississippi State at the Gillom Athletics Sport Center. Set scores were 18-25, 25-21, 25-18, 25-18.
A crowd of 1,207, the largest in the history of the facility, watched the showdown.
“This was an important match for our university, and to be able to win the way we did today feels amazing,” Ole Miss coach Steven McRoberts said. “We didn’t come out with our best and give credit to State, they put pressure on us.
“The middles did a great job controlling the net, and when our middles are playing like that, it means we’re also passing well, so we did a nice job in serve/receive and in transitions.
The loss dropped MSU to 5-17 and 1-8 in the Southeastern Conference. Ole Miss improved to 12-11 and 2-7.
Paige Shaw led MSU with 14 kills. Senior Khristian Carr had 12, Amarrah Cooks had 11, and Deja Robinson added eight.
Robinson had two solo blocks. Morgan Kath had 21 assists. Kendall Murr had 18 digs, and Alleah Stamatis had 17 assists and 10 digs.
“I’m really proud of our execution effort and energy in that first set,” MSU coach Julie Darty said. “It was nice to come out hot and really strong and follow our game plan like we did. I thought we needed to get our middles going early and we did that, but we kind of let off the game plan in terms of getting the middles as many balls as we did. I think we’ve always got to focus on the serve and pass game. Overall, there were some bright spots and there was some growth and there was some good, good stuff to build off of, but is this one that we were really focused on. I thought we had a good game plan, and it just didn’t go our way today.”
MSU will play host to Arkansas at 7 p.m. Wednesday (SEC Network) at the Newell-Grissom Building. Ole Miss will play Friday at Auburn.
n Alabama 3, Arkansas 1: At Fayetteville, Arkansas, Sophomore Doris Carter had 15 kills, and senior Quincey Gary had a season-high 30 digs Sunday to lift the Crimson Tide (17-6, 4-5) past the Razorbacks (9-9, 3-5). Set scores were 25-22, 18-25, 26-24 and 25-19.
Alabama posted a season-high 15 blocks, led by junior Hayley McSparin’s seven. Senior Cidavia Hall and junior Ginger Perinar were close behind with five. It was a career-high for Perinar.
Alabama will play Texas A&M at 6:30 p.m. Friday in College Station, Texas.
n Florida International 3, Southern Mississippi 2: At Miami, the Golden Eagles couldn’t close out the Conference USA match after winning the first two sets.
1-12 and 4-5 in C-USA play.
Sarah Bell had 62 assists for Southern Miss (11-12, 4-5 C-USA). She also added 23 digs and a block. Chandler Marshall added 22 kills and Kylie Grandy had 19.
Southern Miss will play host to Southeastern Louisiana on Tuesday at Reed Green Coliseum.
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