STARKVILLE — Mississippi State returned to Newell-Grissom Building riding a six-match winning streak and coming off a victory at South Carolina to open Southeastern Conference play, but the Bulldogs will head back out on the road coming off back-to-back three-set home losses to LSU and Tennessee.

All three sets were close against the Tigers on Friday, but MSU’s lack of efficiency on offense cost the Bulldogs, who hit .178 for the match. MSU pulled within one point on several occasions in the first set but could never even things up in a 25-23, 25-20, 25-20 defeat. The Bulldogs (7-5, 1-2 SEC) did lead early in both the second and third sets before squandering those leads.

Kailin Newsome met the minimum requirements for a double-double with 10 kills and 10 digs, and Karli Schmidt had 10 kills as well. LSU (9-6, 1-3) had three players with double-digit kills as setter Bailey Ortega orchestrated the offense with 33 assists.

“We just aren’t going hard enough for long enough,” Bulldogs head coach Julie Darty Dennis said. “We have to be so dialed in and so disciplined, and when we take our foot off the gas for just a split second, it’s too much for us to overcome. Discipline, defense, service pressure, all the things that got us to where we are in that win against South Carolina, we haven’t been doing since then. We have to get back to those basics.”

Tennessee, the first team outside the top 25, peeled off eight straight points to take a 10-1 lead in the first set Sunday and went on to win the match 25-14, 25-16, 25-19. The Volunteers (9-5, 2-2) hit .500 as a team in the first set and .484 in the second set, and their setter, redshirt sophomore Caroline Kerr, was all over the court delivering perfect balls to Tennessee’s attackers. Kerr finished with 39 assists, a highly impressive total for a three-set match.

MSU staved off four set points in the opening set, with Newsome delivering a pair of kills, before the Volunteers closed it out. The Bulldogs started better in the next two sets, briefly leading early in the third, but sloppy play kept them from ever taking control.

“We have to play really relentless defense,” Darty Dennis said. “Toward the end of the third set, there were some really long rallies where we actually made it quite hard for Tennessee to earn a point. If we had done that for the duration of the match, the result would have been a little bit different. I don’t feel like we’re playing our best volleyball right now. We have to get going on all cylinders.”

No MSU players were in double figures in kills or digs Sunday. Arissa Smith and Arianna Beckham were efficient and had four blocks each, but the Bulldogs were held to a .184 overall hitting percentage.

The schedule only gets tougher in the coming week for MSU with a trip to No. 18 Florida on Wednesday evening, then a home match next Sunday against No. 24 Auburn.

“We didn’t really have any normal numbers from our starters today,” Darty Dennis said. “It was just kind of a weird day. It felt a little bit slow, and with that slow of a start, you really can’t get much momentum. We had some momentum in the third set, (but) it was too little, too late.”