Team hosts Coastal Carolina in-between road trips
After losing five of its last six matches, including its last two, the South Carolina volleyball team is in dire need of a break.
In the past two weekends, the Gamecocks have given both Mississippi State and Tennessee their first SEC victories.
As they look to get back on track, the Gamecocks welcome Coastal Carolina to Columbia today at 6 p.m. for a much-needed nonconference home match.
The Gamecocks (11-11, 3-7 SEC) have never lost to the Chanticleers (13-9, 6-3 Big South), going 11-0 all-time in a series that dates back to 1975. The two teams last met in Conway last year, when South Carolina took a 3-0 sweep.
Sophomore Sarah Blomgren tallied two kills in the match last year and said she realizes that this year’s matchup with Coastal Carolina could be an important building block for the team.
“We feel that we have the potential to work on the things we’ve been talking about in practice,” Blomgren said. “If we can get a win this Wednesday, hopefully that can catapult us into playing [well] on the road, because we’re going to be playing some tough teams on the road soon.”
After Wednesday’s home match, South Carolina begins a three-game road trip that includes Kentucky, Georgia and Florida, who are a combined 32-2 at home.
Out of the 17 players listed on the Gamecocks’ roster, 10 are freshmen, while only three — junior Michaela Christiaansen, senior Lindsey Craft and senior Juliette Thevenin — are upperclassmen.
While coach Scott Swanson said some losses have been frustrating this season, he’s comfortable with the bigger picture.
“I still love our potential a couple years down the road when all of these freshmen are juniors,” Swanson said. “We have some freshmen who need to get more seasoned, and we’ll have to work with them in the spring, so they can develop the mental and physical skills and the technical aspect of the game to where they’re going to be able to hang against a tough SEC opponent.”
Thevenin quietly picked up kill number 1,500 of her career Sunday against Auburn. The Gamecocks’ towering Belgian is now third on South Carolina’s all-time kills list, needing 348 more to dethrone the leader, Lori Rowe. The team has nine regular season matches left on its schedule.
Although the win column doesn’t always show it, South Carolina is showing signs of improvement. Wins over formidable SEC opponents such as Texas A&M and Ole Miss could be signs that the young team is coming into its own. Blomgren, only in her second year in the program, said she knows that her team needs to grow up fast in order to compete in the SEC.
“It’s been said a lot that we’re a really young team, but we’re trying to move past that stigma,” Blomgren said. “We’re trying to get better as fast as we can and work together as a team. We’ve hit a couple highs and a couple lows, and it is frustrating, but we have to get through it as a team.”