MSU Drops Weeknight Match To Arkansas on Wednesday

Wednesday, October 24

Starkville

7:00 PM

Mississippi State

5-18 (1-9SEC)

Arkansas

10-10 (4-6SEC)

Arkansas

Mississippi State

MSU falls to Arkansas in three on Wednesday (Oct. 24).

Photo by: Trevor Birchett/MSU Athletics

MSU Drops Weeknight Match To Arkansas on Wednesday

October 24, 2018 | Volleyball

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by Mary Catherine Molay, Graduate Assistant/Communications

STARKVILLE- During the second home Wednesday match this season, Mississippi State (5-18, 1-9 SEC) fell to Arkansas (10-10, 4-6 SEC) in three in Newell-Grissom.

Mississippi State fell to Arkansas, 25-18, 25-18, 22-25.

"This was one of those matches where I think we grew as a group," head coach Julie Darty said. "I'm super proud of the way we finished the match. We kind of had a late run in that third set that I'm really proud of. That third set was the most points we scored all match, and Laura Rose was a nice spark off the bench. She came in and got some good touches at the net. Across the board, we tried to serve pretty tough tonight so we missed some balls, but overall I'm pretty pleased with our defensive effort. We worked a lot on just getting good solid positive block touches and defensive touches all week, and I think we saw that that effort and execution was a little bit better. We just [have] to keep playing good clean volleyball and manage stuff on our side of the net, and the rest will take care of itself."

A solo block by Amarrah Cooks started off the match as the Bulldogs were first on the board. There were nine ties and three lead changes throughout the set. Toward the latter half of the set after going back-and-forth, errors proved to be the catalyst for the Bulldogs. Arkansas went on a five-point stint to push ahead and win the set. Paige Shaw and Gabby Waden had three kills apiece. Gabby Zgunda led the team with four digs. MSU won the battle at the net with 3.0 blocks to Arkansas' 1.0.

Shaw had a kill and a service ace to give MSU the 2-0 start in the second set. After a few series, Arkansas gained momentum and went on a six-point run to lead 8-4. Mississippi State struggled to fight back and regain the lead as Arkansas was hitting .342 in comparison to MSU's .176. Shaw tallied five kills while Robinson notched three. Morgan Kath and Alleah Stamatis both had five assists.

There was a lot of back-and-forth in the beginning of the set as Mississippi State struggled to find its groove. From there, MSU could not stop the Razorbacks' attack game as Arkansas went on a seven-point run before a kill by Laura Rose Gray halted its run, 19-10. That created momentum for the Bulldogs as they went on to a five-point run, 19-14, then another run to edge Arkansas at 20-18. Despite the comeback, Arkansas went on to win the set, _

Mississippi State is back in action at home on Sunday, Oct. 28, against No. 13 Florida. The match will air live from Newell-Grissom Building on the SEC Network+ at Noon.

Dawg Bites from Wednesday

Robinson tallied two total blocks. That puts her in 10th place for most total blocks as a freshman with 68. She is two blocks away from tying the ninth spot with Stacey Westfall (1997) with 70. Robinson also had five kills.
Shaw had 11 kills and one service ace
Kath had 16 assists
Stamatis had 14 assists and five digs
Cooks had four kills and five blocks
Khristian Carr had eight kills for a .375 hitting percentage

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