With a sweep of Alabama last weekend, the Texas A&M volleyball team improved to 8-4 on the season and increased its win streak to four games. Next up for the Aggies is a pair of road matchups against Georgia.
A&M coach Laura “Bird” Kuhn said the Aggies are focused on maintaining their success while they’re away.
“It was great being home, but I think now it is routine and consistency,” Kuhn said. “That’s the message to [the team]. Getting back in our routine and being more consistent with our skills and just the way we are competing. The energy is good; we’re hitting the road tomorrow so road warrior mentality.”
Kuhn said the Aggies will have to minimize errors and take care of the ball in order to have success against Georgia.
“They have some key players that we’re going to have to focus on,” Kuhn said. “One of their best players has been out [for] the last couple weeks, but they were just off two weeks so she might be back, she might not. It’s really going to come down to our first contact serve and pass for us and making sure we’re serving tough to get them out of system. It’s going to be about taking care of the ball on our side.”
During winter break, Kuhn said A&M has been practicing using serves as a weapon.
“Serving as a weapon, that’s what we want,” Kuhn said. “We have to serve tough to get teams out of system. We focus on the serving. We serve in practice in between drills a lot, and we do serve and pass battles — we call them pressure serves. We do focus on it because it’s part of what we need to do in order to be that grinding team to earn points defensively. When we’re serving tough like that it makes it tough on the opponent.”
With only six games left before the SEC Tournament, Kuhn said she wants the Aggies to get to a point where they are playing their best volleyball come tournament time.
“I think it was a build-up,” Kuhn said. “We were competing and playing very well at the beginning of the spring, and then February was a rough patch. Getting back into a routine and consistency, we need to keep focusing on that because from this point on the ramp up is the opponents also. We’re going to play back-to-back solid SEC teams on the road and then back at home. It’s a perfect build to end the spring semester.”
The Aggies are set to face Georgia on March 12 and 13 at Stegeman Coliseum at 6 p.m.