AUBURN, Ala. – Opening the final home series of the fall season Wednesday evening, Auburn volleyball (0-7, 0-7 SEC) fell in straight sets to Tennessee (3-4, 3-4 SEC) inside Auburn Arena.
"I thought we competed well at times, and other times we did not," said head coach Brent Crouch. "I thought we were a little flat out there, and I was challenging them in the timeouts to get a little more emotionally connected to this match. We have another chance to go at them tomorrow, but I was overall disappointed. We can be better than what we were tonight."
The Lady Vols held a five-point lead heading into the media timeout of the first set, but the Tigers were aided by three straight Tennessee errors to cut the lead to 14-15. Auburn continued to keep it close until a late 4-0 run by the Lady Vols guided Tennessee to a 20-25 win.
Tennessee secured a 2-0 advantage in the match after a 17-25 victory in set two. Auburn battled right back and stored to a 5-2 lead in set three a big swing from junior Tatum Shipes and a Tiger block, forcing a quick Tennessee timeout.
The Lady Vols answered to tie the third set up 7-7 with a kill from Natalie Hayward, but Auburn answered right back to lock the match up at 9-all with help of a Tennessee attack error. Despite five ties and four lead changes early on, Tennessee broke away midway through the set with a 6-0 run to claim the 19-25 win.
Shipes led the Tigers on from the outside with a team-high eight kills. Shipped added one service ace, two blocks and two digs. Four Tigers closed the night with four kills. Freshman Audrey Douglas, seeing another start at middle blocker, led the group with four kills on six attempts for a .667 hitting efficiency.
Freshman setter Jackie Barrett dished out 22 assists and guided the offense to its second-highest team hitting percentage of the season. Barrett added two blocks and five digs.
For the fourth time this season, Auburn out-blocked its opponent, 5 to 3, with Douglas leading the charge at the net with three.
Senior Payton White finished with double-digit digs for the second time this fall, rounding out the night with 12.
UP NEXT
The Tigers round out the fall season on Thursday. First serve inside Auburn Arena is set for 5 p.m. CT and will stream digitally on the SEC Network +.
