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Ole Miss Volleyball Falls Short Against Tennessee
10/17/1999 | Volleyball
Oct. 17, 1999
OXFORD, Miss. - Despite an outstanding performance by freshman Erin Newsom, the Ole Miss Lady Rebels volleyball team fell to the visiting Tennessee Lady Volunteers 3-0 on Sunday afternoon in Oxford.
The match, which was taped by College Sports Southeast, will be broadcast on Galaxy cable channel 12 on Thursday at 8:00 p.m. This will be the first ever televised home match for the Lady Rebels, who also appeared on television on the road against Auburn earlier this season.
Ole Miss (8-11, 0-7 SEC) will need to be almost perfect in its final eight Southeastern Conference matches to meet its team goal of qualifying for post season play, with only the top eight of the eleven teams making the conference tournament this season.
"We still have every opportunity to qualify for the SEC Tournament," said Ole Miss head coach John Blair. "That's certainly our goal. We have eight SEC matches remaining, five of them are here at home. I don't think there is a lot of quit in this team. They want to win."
Tennessee (14-8, 6-2 SEC) moved into the second spot in the SEC Eastern Division, behind undefeated Florida. Sophomore Ariana Wilson tied a team high in attacking percentage this season with a .545 performance. She led the match with 15 kills.
Ole Miss was led by the trio of junior Kira Zschau, sophomore Jaime Burns and freshman Erin Newsom, all with seven kills. The kill mark was a career high for Newsom, who also set a career high in attacking percentage, with seven kills on eight attempts and no errors for a .875 mark. Although the NCAA and Ole Miss do not calculate records with less than 10 attempts, .875 is the highest percentage by a Lady Rebel with more than six attempts this season.
"That's the most aggressive I've ever seen Erin play," Blair said. "She had a really good hitting rhythm and it's really bad that we couldn't get the ball to her any more than we did.
Certainly she is a very capable young player in this league. If you are looking for bright spots in the match, that was sure one of them."
Ole Miss started each game aggressively, but surrendered runs of five or more points in each of the three games to put themselves in a hole they could not overcome. With a variety of line-up changes, the Lady Rebels have had trouble with continuity on the court which has made it tough for them to find a rhythm.
"We're not getting real continuity from match to match by our starting rotation," Blair said, "so we're finding new people on the floor, which adds to the rhythm problem. One of the things we've got to do is find a solid starting rotation.
That is what this week is going to be about for us going into next weekend, trying to find six people who are going to go out there and hold on to a starting role."
The Lady Rebels will take a break from conference action to take on Memphis at home on Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. Ole Miss leads the series with Memphis 30-29, but lost a five game marathon last season in Memphis.
"We're expecting Memphis to come in here and play really hard," Blair said about the upcoming match. "Memphis' goal in coming down here is not just to play another match. Their goal is to beat Ole Miss."
The Lady Rebels will return to SEC competition next weekend as they take on Arkansas on Friday at 7:00 p.m. and LSU on Sunday at 2:00 p.m. in Oxford. Ole Miss is looking to break a 16-game conference losing streak, dating back to last season, and pick up their first SEC wins of 1999.
Tennessee 15 15 15Ole Miss 7 5 6Tennessee (14-8, 6-2 SEC), Ole Miss (8-11, 0-7 SEC)
