AUBURN, Ala. - The Auburn Tigers' (14-8, 4-7) losing streak continued Sunday as they fell to the Arkansas Razorbacks (15-7, 5-5) in five sets (23-25, 19-25, 25-23, 20-25, 11-15).
In what ended up being a reversal of fates for Auburn from the Kentucky game, the Tigers seemed ready to win after the first two sets were all Tigers, but the Razorbacks were not out yet and mounted a three-set comeback to win the game.
The first set started off with a bit of a rocky start for the Tigers, as for the first half of set one, most of the Tiger’s points were due to errors made by the Razorbacks. The second half of set one though, was dominated by the Tigers, especially Bella Bell and Peyton Dunn. Bell had four kills in a row during the first set, all of which were set up by Dunn.
The second set continued the success the Tigers had in the second half of the first set, with Bel Zimmerman and Madison Sheer having more success on their attacks in this set. One interesting fact from the second set is that Madison Sheer had the only service ace of the set.
While sets one and two went to the Tigers, sets three, four, and five all went to the razorbacks, with the Tigers unable to keep up the momentum they had from the first two sets.
Set three is especially when things began to turn south for the Tigers, especially as before the first media timeout, the Tigers had a ten-point lead (13-3) over the Razorbacks. Arkansas played the set well and was able to get back in the game to win the set by playing steady and scoring three or four points to Auburns one.
The final two sets of the game were very similar, and outside of the early points scored in both sets, Auburn was unable to get within four or five points of the Razorbacks, resulting in a twist of fate from the Kentucky game for Auburn.
Overall, Auburn had a kill percentage of .351 and a hit percentage of .207 while Arkansas had a kill percentage of .349 and a hit percentage of .204. Across the board, all the statistics were solid for Auburn, but in the end it’s the score that matters, and the score showed that the Razorbacks came out on top.
Auburn looks to end their six-game losing streak when they take on the Florida Gators (16-5, 7-3) in Gainesville. The match is set for 6 p.m. CT and will be covered by SECN+.
