The road to a win was a tough one for the Mississippi University for Women volleyball team, but the win itself came pretty easily.
The Owls jumped out to big leads early in the first two sets, then scored the final four points of the third to post a 25-16, 25-15, 25-21 win over Tougaloo College on Monday night at Pohl Gymnasium.
“It feels good to finally get a win after putting in so much hard work,” said Madison Suggs, a sophomore libero from Caledonia High School.
The first victory for first-year coach Halee Hensley came after 13 defeats, including a five-set loss Sept. 30 at Tougaloo.
“I don’t think in the first one we were fully zoned in,” Hensley said of the Bulldogs’ 22-25, 25-21, 25-22, 15-25, 15-13 win. “I think we were distracted by a lot of factors, but we should have won.”
The Owls left no room for doubt Monday night, reeling off 10 consecutive points to take an early 14-3 lead in the opening set. After four consecutive points by the Bulldogs, the teams basically traded points, nobody scoring more than two in a row, the rest of the set.
Hensley said getting off to strong starts took some of the pressure off of a team that had won just seven sets in those 13 defeats.
“It put them in a great spot to be able to make those errors, the kind we typically either fix in practice, or are things that we’re working on,” the coach said. And they did make a few, but with the margin for error it simply didn’t matter.
The last two points of the opening set came courtesy of freshman Maggie Griggs, whose kill provided the 24th point followed by an ace to wrap it up.
The start in the second set was perhaps even more dominant, with the Owls taking leads of 10-2 and 12-3. While the Bulldogs were sloppy during that stretch, strong serving from freshmen Hannah Duran and Llayne Skinner played a part in the runs.
“Llayne Skinner is recovering from a dislocated thumb,” Hensley said. “Her swinging arm, every time she hits, it hurts.”
The Owls’ biggest lead of the second came at 18-7 after a solid block by Jasmine Kelly, and while the Bulldogs closed the gap some they never got closer than six points. An ace by Skinner and a kill from freshman Zoe Hansen kept Tougaloo from putting together a run, and the Owls eventually recorded a 10-point win.
“Our setter-hitter connection was really working,” Hensley said. “Our middles worked all night. Our defense was there.”
Defense has been there most of the season for the Owls, and against the Bulldogs everyone got into the act.
“They swung a lot toward our setters, so I’m just glad our setters actually play defense,” Hensley said. “Sometimes they take a play off because they’re a setter, and they don’t typically play defense.”
The third set was a little different — “a lot different,” Hensley said with a laugh — as the Bulldogs gook an early 8-4 lead as the Owls had trouble getting untracked. Attacking errors, which had been only a minor problem earlier, cropped up, as the Owls put four kill attempts into the middle of the net during the early part of the third set.
But with the chance at their first win in sight, the Owls refused to get done in by nerves and righted the ship and took a 9-8 lead.
It was tight most of the rest of the way, with the teams tying at 9-9, 11-11, 12-12, 13-13, 15-15, 16-16, 18-18 and 21-21 before the Owls scored the final four points, highlighted by a Duran kill to bring up match point, to finally get that elusive win.
“Literally everybody” had a hand in the win, Hensley said. “It was a total team effort.”
And that team is young.
“We only have two upperclassmen, all the rest are sophomores and freshmen,” Suggs said. “Coach Halee is trying to change the culture here, and we can build on this.”
The Owls will get their first chance to build on this Saturday when they travel to Shreveport, Louisiana, for two matches against Centenary. The Owls have not won a set in four matches against the Ladies, who have lost four consecutive matches going into a Wednesday meeting at Jarvis Christian.
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