The Ole Miss volleyball team looks to get back to their winning ways on the road against Georgia today after snapping their 14-match winning streak with a loss against Texas A&M.
With much of the top talent in the SEC facing off over the next two weeks, there is a prime opportunity for one of those teams to put some distance between themselves and the rest of the pack, and the Rebels will look to take advantage of that opportunity.
“We’ve done this before. It’s going to be a 9 p.m. match, so it’s another late one. We played at 8 p.m. against Arkansas, so the girls from a physical standpoint have already gone through a long day like that,” head coach Steven McRoberts said in a Monday press conference. “We know what it’s like. Georgia is tied with us for first, along with Kentucky and Florida.”
Georgia and Ole Miss enter tonight’s matchup with identical records, both sitting at 14-4 (6-1 SEC). They are tied for the best record in the league with perennial powerhouses No. 13 Florida and No. 16 Kentucky.
After a slow start to their nonconference schedule, the Bulldogs got the ball rolling by firing off six straight wins before losing to archrival Florida on the road. This seemed to only energize a Georgia team that has now won 11 of their past 12 matches, including a road win over Kentucky and wins at home over Tennessee and LSU.
They now face an Ole Miss squad that had won an SEC-best 14 straight before last weekend. With a tough stretch of games on the horizon, the Rebels must rebound quickly from their devastating loss at home if they do not want to see themselves begin to slip down the conference standings.
“Tom Black at Georgia has done a really nice job with that program. They’re right along the lines with us in that fact that they weren’t expected to do as well as they have in the league,” McRoberts said. “We’re both up here tied in the league through seven SEC matches, so it’s fun.”
Ole Miss must take on Georgia and Kentucky this week, a brutal pair of matches that pits them against two of the three other teams tied for the lead in the SEC. Should they manage to escape the weekend unscathed, they would be in a prime position to pull away in the standings.
Those wins would put them ahead of those opponents and leave just Florida at the top. The Gators have a tough weekend of their own at home, with matches against Alabama and Tennessee, and will to travel to Columbia for a midweek matchup against No. 25 Missouri before facing the Rebels on the road on Nov. 8. That date is important because it will also feature the second round of Kentucky versus Georgia, this time in Athens.
Ole Miss will try to take the first step in securing its position with the match against Georgia at 8 p.m.
