Freshman Kelly Fidero, left, and sophomore Alyssa Davis block Gamecock Megan Laughlin’s shot.: JD Schein / PHOTO EDITOR
Auburn’s volleyball team continued to struggle as the Tigers lost their 10th and 11th straight matches last weekend.
Auburn (5-16, 0-10 SEC) lost 3-0 to Florida Friday and 3-1 to South Carolina on Sunday. Both matches were played at home.
“We’re stuck in a rotation, and that’s just our youth coming through,” said first-year assistant coach Chris Campbell. “It’s a process, we are not evaluating our team on wins and losses right now. We are evaluating on steps they are taking along the way. The wins will come eventually.”
Against the No. 8 Gators (16-1, 10-0 SEC), Auburn came out strong in the first set, but could not pull it out, and each subsequent set got worse as Florida left town with the 25-19, 25-16, 25-14 win.
The Tigers jumped out to 4-0 and 5-0 leads in the first and second sets, respectively, as the Gators were forced to come back in both sets to win.
In the first set, Auburn led at 18-17 before the Gators went on a 9-0 run led by Erin Fleming’s eight straight points.
In the second set, the Tigers led at 14-13 before Elyse Cusak scored nine straight points, leading Florida to the 25-16 win.
The Gators then took the 25-14 win in the third set.
Kelly Murphy had a match-high 13 kills for Florida, and Cusak had the most digs with 16.
Senior Jessica Glover had eight kills, as did freshman Olympia Haney for the Tigers. Glover also had eight digs, but sophomore Liz Crouch led the team with 11.
Against South Carolina (15-4, 7-3 SEC) Sunday afternoon, Auburn was slow to start, dropping the first set 25-11.
When South Carolina led 11-7, Bridget Denson-Dorman scored eight straight points to take an 18-7 lead, and Auburn could not recover.
Auburn bounced back in the second set, as freshman Kelly Fidero recorded five kills, helping the Tigers win 25-13.
In the third set, USC jumped out to a 17-10 lead and put it away at 25-18. In the fourth and final set, the Gamecocks took advantage of multiple Auburn errors to come away with the set 25-17 and the match.
“Today was kind of a letdown after playing well against Florida, but there were some positive things,” Campbell said.
The coach said the Tigers are seeing some improvements on offense and singled out a couple different players.
“Kelly Fidero had a break-out match, and Jessica Glover was steady as always,” Campbell said. “Now that we are starting to find a few more pistons to fire to help Jess out on offense, we have to get more people comfortable.”
Ivana Kujundzic led the Gamecocks with 11 kills and a match-high 14 digs.
Megan Laughlin posted a match-high 14 kills for USC.
For the Tigers, Fidero led the way with 11 kills and Glover added 10.
Sophomore Milena Bukinac had a team-high 11 digs and nine kills.
“We need to focus on the plays that matter — the ones that have a direct effect on us losing,” Bukinac said.
Auburn returns to action this weekend on the road, as the Tigers will play at Ole Miss (8-10, 4-5 SEC) at 7:30 p.m. Friday and at Arkansas (5-14, 2-7 SEC) at 1:30 p.m. Sunday.
“We have to come to practice ready to get better individually,” Glover said. “We can’t use any excuses. We just have to fight and push to get better.”
