It’s been a tough stretch over the last two weeks for Auburn volleyball. Four matches, four losses and four sweeps.
The Tigers are looking to change that in their season finale on the road against Mississippi State on Friday. This will be Auburn’s fourth straight match against a ranked opponent and the Tigers have won six of the last 10 matches against Mississippi State.
However, Auburn hasn’t recorded a win since 2018 against the Bulldogs.
This season has been a step in the right direction for Auburn, winning 13 matches. It’s the most wins in a season since 2017 when the Tigers won 15 matches.
Leading the charge has been Tatum Shipes, who holds the program’s single-season record for total blocks, block assists and blocks per set in the rallying-score era. Shipes has been instrumental in Auburn’s success this season, leading the SEC in total blocks and blocks per set.
The Tigers are fourth overall in the SEC in blocks, second in digs, but first in opponent hitting percentage. The .170 hitting percentage allowed by Auburn is 35th-best in the nation and lowest in the SEC.
Mississippi State is sixth in the SEC in hitting percentage at .243, led by senior middle blocker Gabby Waden and junior outside hitter Lauren Myrick. Waden and Myrick are part of a powerful Bulldog team that leads the SEC in both team kills and team attacks.
Waden leads the team in kills with 399 kills while Myrick poses a threat to anyone at the service line with her team-leading 35 aces.
Auburn’s Rebekah Rath is looking to build off of a strong performance against Kentucky, where she recorded her sixth consecutive double-digit kills. She has 426 kills this season, one of the five categories in which Rath leads the SEC. It’s also a single-season record for kills during the rally-scoring era.
The match will begin at 4 p.m. CST from the Newell-Grissom Building in Starkville, Mississippi. It will be broadcast on SEC Network-plus.
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Originally from Helena, Ala., Caleb Jones is a senior studying journalism at Auburn University. He has been on staff with The Plainsman since 2019.
You can follow him here on Twitter: @calebjsports
