Auburn volleyball battled hard, steadily raising their hitting percentage and consistent serving, but couldn’t overcome the Texas A&M squad, falling 3-0 (25-17, 25-22, 25-21) Friday night in Neville Arena.
Freshman Greer Chambless turned in the best performance of her young career, hitting .545 on six swings, while Lauren Dreves once again led the offense with 11 kills, reaching double digits for the 22nd time this season and marking her ninth straight match in double digits. Still, the Tigers (16-8, 7-6 SEC) weren’t successful in slowing down the Aggies (20-3, 12-1), who hit an impressive .392 for the match.
“It always hurts to lose,” head coach Brent Crouch said. “Texas A&M is a good team-obviously, 20-3, 12-1 in conference. They just got a win last week against Texas. They are playing at a really, really high level right now, and they continued that during the match.”
Auburn’s offense struggled to find their rhythm early, hitting .000 in the beginning of the match while Texas A&M piled up four blocks. Chambless’ early kills were able to keep the Tigers close before the Aggies pushed forward, hitting .400 to take the first set.
The Tigers’ attack improved as the match went on. Setters Shanelle Puetz and Kalei Edson distributed the ball well to Dreves and Liz Markovska, who combined for 10 kills in the third set. Auburn hit .176 in the second and .371 in the final frame but couldn’t keep pace with the Aggies’ .541 third-set performance.
Crouch pointed to Auburn’s need for composure early in matches. “We need to figure out how to start matches just a little bit better against some of these better teams,” he said. “We went from hitting to .000, to .176, to .371. So the offense started going as we stopped hitting the ball out of bounds. I think we were a little too jacked at the beginning of that match. We just have to learn how to trust ourselves that our good is good enough.”
Grace Havlicek anchored the Tigers’ defense with four blocks, reaching 100 blocks this season. She is the second Auburn player to hit the mark this year, joining Kate Mansfield. It also marked Havlicek’s eighth straight match with at least four blocks.
Auburn was held without an ace for the first time all year despite strong serving. “That’s a testament to they are a really good passing team” Crouch noted. “When you pass well and you’re along the net, you’re going to hit for a high efficiency, which is what they did.”
The Tigers have only a short break before traveling to face another tough opponent, Texas, on Wednesday. “We’ve got a couple days off now,” Crouch said. “That will be good to flush this out. We have a really good team that we’re playing on Wednesday in Texas. Welcome to SEC Volleyball. There’s really good teams here.”
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