A young starting lineup has helped the Texas Tech volleyball team peak in recent matches as Tech stole a set each from Kansas State and No. 2 Texas on their home courts this past week.
However, this squad had yet to showcase itself in front of a home crowd until Saturday in a loss against Oklahoma. Tech assistant coach Beth Falls attributed the result of the match to the team’s mistakes, not it’s youth.
“OU has the experience,” Falls said. “If you look at all of our games, you’ll see that we didn’t have many games where we were ahead at the end to finish the game. Our inexperience in that aspect kind of helped (OU) win that game. We made a few errors and we kept blowing them off and that’s what happens. You can’t make errors in volleyball.”
Tech (2-23, 0-16 in Big 12 Conference play) did just that, amassing 24 errors as Oklahoma (18-8, 11-6) took care of business winning the match 3-0.
Mental errors gave way to a sluggish start for the Red Raiders in the early going.
Oklahoma opened the first set with eight consecutive points and never looked back. The result was a 25-15 loss for Tech, but middle blocker Alexxa Roberts said that the slow start is something the team has to look past and overcome.
“Honestly, I don’t know what happened in that first set,” she said. “If we come out with more urgency in the first game, then we won’t be so behind. We’re always going to feel pressure, that’s what playing sports is about. It’s like a wave hits us, we need to come out on top, and even if we don’t win that first game, then we need to come out in the second one and be ready to go. We need to just not let it affect us and put it in the back of our heads.”
Tech rebounded in the following set, going back and forth with the Sooners.
It also was in the second set when Tech held it’s largest lead of the match at 17-13, only to see Oklahoma win the match. The set isn’t the first time the Red Raiders have lost a lead —something that has been common throughout the season.
Defensive specialist Aleah Hayes credits the team’s inability to sustain momentum to a lack of stability.
“I don’t know if pressure had a lot to do with it,” Hayes said. “We just didn’t come out as strong as we have before. Our starting lineup did have three freshmen and we’re a young squad, but I don’t think it was that. We come in and we have fun, work hard, play like we know we can and we feel like we did that but we obviously didn’t. We need to find that consistency, and once we do, we’ll be good to go.”
Tech will stay in Lubbock to host Missouri Wednesday, giving the team another opportunity to end what is now a 55-match losing streak to Big 12 opponents.
Being home will give players a break from traveling, but Falls said that the pressure of performing in front of familiar faces is what’s holding the team back.
“Everyone wants to do so well at home because our home crowd wants to see us play well,” she said. “Other than that I think they out pressure on themselves to do so well and I don’t think it matters if they’re freshmen or seniors, they want to perform well for the home crowd and that puts pressure on them to do things. I don’t think it has anything to do with being young.”
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