Rebels Host No. 24 LSU To Open SEC Play Tonight

By Whitney Tarpy
Athletics Media Relations

For the three seniors on the Ole Miss volleyball team, their career as Lady Rebels can be compared to that of a rollercoaster ride.

The only exception is that the ride for Tara Langley, Katie Kramer and Lauren Moffett has only gone in one direction, up.

That's a trend the trio of seniors hope to continue when the Rebels (10-1) play host to No. 24 LSU (8-1) in a match at 7 p.m. Wednesday night at the Gillom Center.

Throughout the players' time with the program, they have seen the team build itself up from the bottom. The trio watched as they climbed from a 10-18 record their freshmen year to receiving a NCAA Tournament bid for the first time in program history in 2006.

Currently, the Rebels are receiving votes for the top 25 for the third straight week, a first for the program. With a win on Wednesday, the Rebels could make a stronger case for breaking into the national rankings.

"The program is a lot different," Langley said. "We have bought into the program more. We have dedicated a lot of our time to making the program better. From my freshman year to last year, it has been a total turnaround.

"I know when I first came, volleyball was not a priority for anybody on the team," Kramer said. "It makes it hard to change your thinking. It was hard to not just change your thought process of what is important, but everybody else's thoughts as well."

The players did not hesitate to say that the turnaround could be seen last summer. The team decided to sacrifice their summer months off from school to stay in Oxford to get stronger and improve.

"It was our choice to be here," Langley said. "I think everybody wanted to make the program better. And it was everybody, not just one person."

Moffett also said that better communication between the coaches helped as well, saying that the players have a better understanding of what the coaches want and expect from the team.

The hard work and effort from the Lady Rebels in the summer of 2006 paid off, as the team posted a 19-13 overall record and 10 wins in conference play. In the final regular season match, the team took down No. 11 LSU, marking the program's first-ever win over a ranked team and securing a spot in the NCAA Tournament against Southern California.

"We were so excited," Moffett said. "We worked so hard and we knew what we wanted to do. To see our name on the screen, it gave me butterflies in my stomach. All the stress was off our shoulders when we finally realized we had made it."

With a new season already in full swing, the team knows that the bar has been raised. Kramer said that after having such a good season last year, everybody expects the team to have an equal or better year.

"I think there is pressure for us to achieve more, and obviously we have a higher standard and goal than we did last year," she said.

The seniors know that the pressure is not just on them but also on the whole team, even the newcomers. However, with the attitude of the program at a much different place than four years ago, the pressure on this season's freshmen is much different than when the seniors came to Ole Miss for the first time.

"They aren't really allowed to mess up," Kramer said. "We (seniors) learned from trial and error our freshman year. They step out of line, and they have 13 other people on them. They are learning the right way early on, whereas with us, it took a couple of years."

The ride for the Lady Rebels has already continued its climb to the top, as the trio of seniors has led the team to a 10-1 start heading into Southeastern Conference play this week.

On the opening weekend (Aug. 24-25), the Lady Rebels knocked off then No. 20 Missouri on their way to capturing the Magnolia Invitational. They followed that up by winning the Akron Zips Invitational last weekend. Kramer earned Tournament MVP honors in Ohio.

The Rebels went 3-1 this weekend at the SMU Radisson Invitational with Langley earning Libero of the Tournament honors.

During their careers, these seniors have been a part of making history, but they want to make more before it's all said and done.

"Long term, we want to win the SEC West," said Moffett of the team's goals. "As seniors, we are reminded that it's our last chance to win a ring and our last chance to be a first because we already became the first team to go to the NCAA, so we would like to be the first to win the West."

The start for that goal of a Western Division title begins this Wednesday night against No. 24 LSU. The Rebels will be hosting the Tigers in the opening match of Southeastern Conference play with a lot to play for, as Ole Miss upset LSU - who was then ranked No. 11 in the nation - to close out the regular season a year ago and propel the team to its first NCAA Tournament.

The University of Mississippi Athletics

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