The Lady Colonels volleyball team was only able to produce one win in the Jaguar Classic hosted by South Alabama last weekend.In day one of the tournament, the Lady Colonels were dominant over the Tigers of Jackson State, allowing them to score no more than 18 points in all three sets of the match with scores of 25-15, 25-16 and 25-18, respectively.
The Lady Colonels were led by freshman outside hitter Jennifer Dunn, who hit a .550 average in the match. The team was able to hit a .410 average in this match. Freshman setter Nancy Taylor provided 18 assists in front of her hometown crowd.
On the offensive side of the ball, the Lady Colonels posted 38 kills on 78 attempts with only six attack errors.
On the defensive side of the ball, the Lady Colonels held the Tigers to a .095 hitting average. The Lady Colonels were able to hold the Tigers to a low average by posting three blocks, two combined involving Rachel Yezak, Elise King and Amy Beshir and one solo for Yezak, and 37 digs.
In day two of the tournament, the Lady Colonels came up short in their matches against the Eagles of Southern Miss. and the host team of the Jaguars of South Alabama.
“We have some mixed feelings about how we did today,” head coach Chris Laird said. “We were doing some really good things at the right times, but we were also playing a little inconsistently and making some crucial mistakes at crucial times.”
The Lady Colonels started off the day facing the Jaguars, forcing the match to go into four sets with the losing deficit no more than five. The Lady Colonels fell in the first two matches with scores of 26-24 and 25-22 respectively. However, the Lady Colonels battled through a tiebreaker series to take the third set 29-27 but failed to send the match into five sets with a fourth set loss of 25-20.
Despite Yezak’s 11 kills and senior setter Amy Whitehead’s 38 assists in the match, the Jaguars’ defense proved to be too much with 12.5 blocks and 51 digs, holding the Lady Colonels to a .175 hitting average.
“We played hard today against South Alabama,” Laird said. “We were up in the match in all four sets, but we couldn’t close it. So obviously, we had a problem with finishing games. The second match was kind of difficult for us. After that letdown in the first match, it was a little tough to gauge where we were emotionally. We still played well in a couple of sets, but one of those sets was really disappointing.”
The Lady Colonels had a second chance to defeat the Golden Eagles of Southern Miss. in their second match of the day. The Lady Colonels faced the Golden Eagles in their home opener on Sept. 1 and lost in four sets.
The Lady Colonels kept the first set close, seeing 10 tied scores and seven lead changes before the Golden Eagles took the set 25-20.
The Golden Eagles hit a .421 average in the last two sets to take both from the Lady Colonels 25-14 and 25-17, respectively.
The Lady Colonels play in their last weekend road trip tournament this weekend in the Lady Panther Invitational, to be held at Prairie View A&M.
