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MSU volleyball's errors holding the squad back from top of standings

October 19, 2021
Photo by Tyler Smith | The State News

Michigan State volleyball struggled with errors during their loss to Maryland in four sets Saturday. Despite their dominant offensive stats, they finished the night with 14 service errors, 27 attack errors and four block errors. This compared to Maryland’s four service errors, 13 attack errors and one block error on the night.

These errors occurred during critical points throughout the game and hindered the Spartans from being able to take a significant lead.

Those errors are easy notice when you have the experience senior Naya Gros has.

“We made crucial errors at crucial times and we let them get on a couple runs that might have cost us the game” Gros said. “If you compete with the best you can be the best and I feel that Maryland is a great team and that we could have definitely pushed through had we not made crucial errors at crucial times.”

Michigan State will need to reduce these unforced errors if they hope to snap their five game losing streak which has sunk them below .500.

Despite being the star of the offense, sophomore Sarah Franklin knows there's much more she can do to help cut down errors.

“There’s a lot I think we can improve on, mainly just serve receive and hitting at the crucial times that we need it, just being able to to make those plays” Franklin, who led the offense with 20 kills against the Terrapins, said.

Michigan State Head Coach Cathy George knows how close they are to success, but costly errors can hold a team from reaching the top of the standings.

"You cannot give that many points to a team and expect to win, so if we can cut that down and not give up as many then they have to actually earn them and that’s what we have to get ourselves set up on," George said. "We cannot just keep handing over gifts so, we're gonna have to get to execution and doing the things the way we know how to. I’m very sure that our team can do those things so we just have to work at that and make sure that we’re not getting careless at the wrong times out of frustration.”

The Spartans have been competitive in each game they have been in this season, but the errors have kept them thinking about what could have been.

The Spartans will need to reduce the unforced errors if they hope to knock off No. 9 Purdue on the road and improve to nine wins and .500 on the season.

“(For) Purdue we need to improve on serving, serve receive, we can always get in there and hit balls high hands off the block," Gros said. "We can improve on a lot of things, blocking too. I just feel like there are never enough you can improve on even the things that we did well tonight we can also improve on those things as well.”

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