Tennessee volleyball ends set losing streak, but still falls to Texas A&M

It’s been a rough streak for Tennessee volleyball.

Coming into Wednesday night’s home match against Texas A&M, the Vols had dropped 13 straight sets to go along with three-straight shutout losses. For head coach Rob Patrick, it has been about things that his team can control.

“Unforced errors,” Patrick said. “We just had way too many unforced errors last weekend and out error ratio was way too high.”

Tennessee returned home to try and correct those errors against Texas A&M on Wednesday night. However, the Vols’ fell to the Aggies for the second time this season, 3-1. The first set was close early, but Texas A&M dominated the latter part of it to take the lead in the match with a set score of 25-19.

The Aggies came out and dominated the early part of the second set and never looked back, as they took the set 25-20. Tennessee found momentum early in the third set and rolled with it for an east 25-16 to victory. The fourth set was a thriller, as it came down to the very end and needed to be decided past the 25 point mark. The Aggies put it away with the next two points to close out the match.

Rob Patrick was much more optimistic after this match than he has been after the last several matches. “I was really pleased with how hard we played. I thought after the first set, our players made some really nice adjustments and our passing and defense was really clean tonight.”

Freshman Sedona Hansen again had a good night with a career-best 20 digs to go along with 43 assists. It was also a big night for junior Kanisha Jimenez, as she finished with nine kills and 10 digs. Jimenez said after the game that the team was “very confident today and that they knew Texas A&M was going to come ready to play.”

Tennessee will next face off against LSU on Sunday.

Edited by David Bradford

Featured image by John Golliher, courtesy of Tennessee Athletics