AUBURN, Ala. – The Auburn volleyball team held off a scrappy Mississippi State squad Wednesday night, 3-2 (25-23, 22-25, 26-24, 14-25, 15-12), to close out the team's home slate in Auburn Arena. The Tigers improved to 12-15 overall and 5-12 in the Southeastern Conference.
"I'm proud of how we came back and played aggressive at the end," head coach Rick Nold. "We've talked about that a lot in the last couple weeks on staying aggressive through all situations and it paid off tonight. I'm happy we could send out our seniors with a win at home in front of a great crowd."
The Tigers honored three student-athletes prior to the start match – Isabella Thompson, Brenna McIlroy and Karis Beasley.
McIlroy, a senior from Garland, Texas, led the Tigers with 18 kills in the match. She picked up her eighth double-double of the season with 12 digs and chipped in a match-high four service aces. With that ace total, she set a new Auburn single-season record (rally scoring only) with 48 on the season.
Junior Gwyn Jones tied a season best with 17 kills, while sophomore Anna Stevenson added 12. Freshman Tatum Shipes chipped in 10 in the match. Freshman setter Mica Allison finished with 57 assists and eight digs for the Tigers.
Defensively, freshman libero Bella Rosenthall had a team-high 16 digs and Beasley added 12. Auburn totaled 10 blocks in the match with Jones having her hand on five. Stevenson totaled four and junior Shaina White finished with three.
Mississippi State (5-25, 1-16) was led by Paige Shaw with a match-high 19 kills. Libero Gabby Zgunda led all student-athletes with 21 digs and setter Morgan Kath had 57 assists.
The Tigers opened the match with a kill from Thompson and went up on 7--1 run. Mississippi State answered back with a run of its own to bring the set to 10-9 and the teams battled back and forth for the remainder of the stanza. Auburn picked up kills late from White and Stevenson to take the set, 25-23.
Auburn took momentum to begin the second set, breaking out to an 8-2 lead. After exchanging points, the Bulldogs went on a 7-1 run to even things up at 14-all. With MSU leading 23-20, Jones and Stevenson answered with kills to pull the Tigers within one at 23-22, but Mississippi State held on to take the set, 25-22.
Back-to-back kills by Stevenson and an ace from McIlroy made it 6-3 Auburn in the third and an ace by Allison followed by a kill from White set the score 11-6. The Bulldogs used a pair of three-point pushes to move ahead 13-12 before the Tigers capitalized on strong play at the net to hold an 18-17 advantage. MSU responded again and forced an Auburn timeout late with a 23-20 lead, but kills from Stevenson and another ace by McIlroy put AU up in the match with a 26-24 victory.
The Bulldogs were not done and came out swinging in set fourth, going ahead 8-5. A three-point run by the visitors made it 16-10 and a 4-0 push led to a 20-12 lead for Mississippi State. The Bulldogs forced a fifth set with a 25-14 win.
Auburn regrouped in the final stanza and used big swings from McIlroy and Jones to go up 4-1. After exchanging points, a kill by Shipes brought the teams to the media timeout with Auburn up 8-6. A big Stevenson/Jones block made it 12-9 and a kill from McIlroy gave AU match point, 14-12. In fitting fashion, the final point of the night was a service ace by McIlroy, 15-12.
The Tigers close out the 2019 season on the road, traveling to No. 11 Kentucky, Nov. 24. Auburn and the SEC champion Wildcats will go head-to-head at 12 p.m. CT in Memorial Coliseum.
