The Ole Miss volleyball team opens SEC play on Friday at home against Tennessee in the Gillom Center.
The Rebels have won eight straight games away from home after starting the season 0-3 and are eager to play on familiar territory after three weeks on the road.
“We play better at home, in general,” said head coach Steven McRoberts. “It’s nice not only to get to play at home first, but it’s also nice that we only have one [match] this first weekend… but definitely nice to open at home.”
After losing all three of their matches at home in the Rebel Invitational to open the season, Ole Miss has won eight straight including four matches where they did not concede a single set.
They must now turn their attention to Tennessee, a team that surprised many last year by finishing near the top of the SEC standings and going toe-to-toe with SEC heavyweights such as Florida and Kentucky.
“We’ve kind of seen all sorts of different teams and we’re ready for whatever comes at us,” assistant coach Torri Plugge said. “We’ve seen big teams, we’ve seen small teams, we’ve seen fast teams, we’ve seen slow teams, so I think we’ve been really well prepared for whatever is across the net [come SEC play].”
Last year the Volunteers went 26-6 including 16-2 in SEC play. Their only two losses in conference came against eventual SEC champion Kentucky. In their only matchup against Florida, the Vols swept the Gators in Knoxville, a key win that secured a second-place finish for Tennessee in the SEC.
In the NCAA Tournament last year, the Volunteers won their opening-round matchup against Colorado State before falling to No. 19 Washington State. The Vols are also returning nearly every player from last year’s squad after losing just one senior.
“[Tennessee is] a very fiery team. They’ve got a lot of energy,” Plugge said. “I think they’re a very good team again this year, and they’re very disciplined with what they do so we just got to make sure we show up and play Ole Miss volleyball.”
The Volunteers have struggled a bit to open the season and currently sit at 6-4. They played one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the country however, with three of their losses coming to top-10 teams in the nation.
The Rebels lost both of their matches against Tennessee last season, but were extremely competitive at home against the high-flying Vols. They lost the match 1-3 but managed to score 21 points or more in each of the three sets they lost and even pushed the Volunteers to extra points in a hotly contested third set.
They will be looking to pounce at the opportunity to knock off an SEC heavyweight that has struggled to build momentum thus far.
“It was a good match here last year… every set was [within] a couple points… it was a really close match,” McRoberts said. “It sure would be nice to start conference off with a win against Tennessee at home. That can be one of those matches that, at the end of the season when you’re playing in the NCAA Tournament, you can say that’s the one that really helped usget over the top.”
