MSU Falls to Arkansas In Fayetteville on Friday, 3-1

Friday, October 12

Fayetteville, Ark.

7:00 PM

Mississippi State

5-14, 1-5SEC

Arkansas

8-9, 2-5SEC

Mississippi State

Arkansas

Mississippi State fell to Arkansas on Friday (Oct. 12) in Fayetteville.

Photo by: Blake Williams/MSU Athletics

MSU Falls to Arkansas In Fayetteville on Friday, 3-1

October 12, 2018 | Volleyball

Box Score BOX SCORE (PDF)

by Mary Catherine Molay, Graduate Assistant/Communications

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark.- After taking the first set of the night, Mississippi State (5-14, 1-5 SEC) fell to Arkansas (8-9, 2-5 SEC) in four on Friday night (Oct. 12).

Mississippi State fell to Arkansas in four 25-23, 23-25, 28-25, 12-25.

Tonight was a really interesting match if you look at the final stats," head coach Julie Darty said. "For us to hit .241 [hitting percentage] on a match and be that efficient [is really good for us]. Across the board, we had some people who were off the charts. Amarrah [Cooks] with the one error night that she had hitting .600 on those 20 swing was near perfect. That was really exciting for her. Our block was pretty good at the net. I think our back court defense needs to pick it up a little bit to mirror how hard the front court is working.

"This was one of those games where I thought we were in it. We thought we were in it too, but something just slipped away from us. Arkansas is a very physical team on the pins. We're going to go home tonight, and we are going to get back to work tomorrow with a really good practice, scout and prepare for Missouri at home. This is a tough league top to bottom."

After errors by Arkansas in addition to a kill by Paige Shaw and a service ace by Kendall Murr, the Bulldogs took the 4-1 lead to start the set. Midway through, Arkansas went on a five-point stint to take the lead, 13-12. After the media timeout, Mississippi State benefited from Razorback errors as well as service aces to lead by four, 20-16. At the Bulldog set point mark, Mississippi State struggled to secure the win after back-to-back errors gave Arkansas an advantage. After a timeout by Darty, the Bulldogs were able to capitalize and claim the set, 25-23. Amarrah Cooks had four kills along with a .571 hitting percentage. Paige Shaw and Deja Robinson both had three kills. Robinson hit 1.000 in the set. Murr claimed six digs.

Set two quickly became a kills battle as Arkansas pushed ahead to 12-7 after 10 kills. In the set, Arkansas had 21 kills compared to Mississippi State's 10. The Razorbacks' other two points came off of service aces. After a few back-and-forth series, Mississippi State battled back to tie it up at 20 with a block solo by Shaw. The block helped to push momentum as the Bulldogs went on a three-point streak after a kill by Shaw, an Arkansas error and a service ace by Gabby Zgunda, 23-20. The rally was not enough as Arkansas went on to tie it at 23 before back-to-back kills secured the win for the Razorbacks. Shaw had four kills and one block solo. Cooks registered three kills on four attempts for a .750 hitting percentage. The Bulldogs did lead with 4.0 blocks to the Razorbacks 1.0.

From the start of the set, it was extremely close between the two teams. After a trio of kills and an error, Arkansas pushed ahead to take the 11-7 lead. From there on, a kills battle ensued as there were only four errors recorded between both teams for the rest of the set. After a Mississippi State error, Arkansas went on a 4-0 run to rally their lead to 21-13. Mississippi State struggled to gain back momentum as the Razorbacks went on to take the set. Cooks had a .857 hitting percentage with her six kills. Alleah Stamatis had eight assists while Taylor Haskins and Murr each had three digs.

Similar to the start of set three, the fourth set was very tight. Arkansas had a trio of kills that propelled its momentum to lead 13-9. After that, Mississippi State struggled to stop the Razorbacks' attack game as Arkansas went on to take the set and the match, 25-12.

Mississippi State is back home this Sunday, Oct. 14, to wrap up week five of SEC play. The Bulldogs welcome the Missouri Tigers for its annual Dig Pink match. First serve is set for 1 p.m. at Newell-Grissom on the SEC Network +.

Dawg Bites from Friday

Cooks was accurate from the net as she had 13 kills on 20 swings for a .600 hitting percentage. She also had 5 blocks and 17.0 points.
Shaw tallied 12 kills and 2.0 blocks
Robinson had six kills for a .308 hitting percentage
Stamatis had 21 assists and nine digs
Morgan Kath had 14 assists
Murr had 14 digs
Stamatis and Haskins had two service aces apiece
Murr and Zgunda each had one service ace

Follow the Bulldogs
For more information on Mississippi State volleyball, follow the Bulldogs on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram by searching for "HailStateVB." You can also find all-access coverage of the program on SnapChat by searching for "HailStateSnap."